Possible move to Grand Rapids area (to rent, condos, how much)

[blessings11]

My husband was just hired to work from home for a company. We can live anywhere we want within 2 hours of a major airport. My brother and his wife are moving to GR to live with her mother. So in order to be close by our niece (we've been caring for her over the last couple of months due to mom's drug use- hence their move) and we feel like we need to continue to be around for her. We've looked at Indiana and Northern Kentucky also.

We are in the process of selling our house in California (we may possibly rent it out rather than lowering the price to the point of not getting anything out of it.)

We'd like a large house with at least 6 bedrooms (9 kids) and if possible an acre or two. Our price range (depending on how much we end up selling the house for) is 180-250 range. If we rent our house out we need to rent there, is that even a possibility? We are conservative and home school (Grand Rapids from the looks of thing is very home school friendly) and are looking for an Assembly of God Church because our kids participate in Bible Quiz. We also need high speed internet.
Any thoughts on a good area for our super-sized family?

[magellan]

Originally Posted by blessings11

My husband was just hired to work from home for a company. We can live anywhere we want within 2 hours of a major airport. My brother and his wife are moving to GR to live with her mother. So in order to be close by our niece (we've been caring for her over the last couple of months due to mom's drug use- hence their move) and we feel like we need to continue to be around for her. We've looked at Indiana and Northern Kentucky also.

We are in the process of selling our house in California (we may possibly rent it out rather than lowering the price to the point of not getting anything out of it.)

We'd like a large house with at least 6 bedrooms (9 kids) and if possible an acre or two. Our price range (depending on how much we end up selling the house for) is 180-250 range. If we rent our house out we need to rent there, is that even a possibility? We are conservative and home school (Grand Rapids from the looks of thing is very home school friendly) and are looking for an Assembly of God Church because our kids participate in Bible Quiz. We also need high speed internet.
Any thoughts on a good area for our super-sized family?

Here's a beauty for ya blessings11:

http://public.grar.com/public/pubrec...rt?MLS=G597638

You could turn one of the barns into a "home school" classroom.

I just did a search on the GRAR site and put in your price range, 5+ bedrooms (it won't do 6), and did it for the entire metro area MLS and this is what I got (53 listings):

Public Search Results

Can't help you on the Assembly of God offerings, but possibly someone else can.

[Love the Rocky Mountains]

I homeschool also and one of the downsides of Michigan are the complicated homeschooling situation. In CO we have have funded public homeschools and it has worked fabulously for us. Can you tell me where you found the information on the homeschooling in Grand Rapids? I would like to continue to homeschool if we move there. My children are doing really well with this system. Thanks!

[blessings11]

Can you tell me where you found the information on the homeschooling in Grand Rapids? I would like to continue to homeschool if we move there. My children are doing really well with this system. Thanks!


We are private homeschoolers (no public funding) there is a huge home school music and fine arts program in Grand Rapids but they stipulate that you cannot be part of a public school system, we have the same stipulations here in a lot of our support groups in California. I googled home schooling in MI and found many organizations and co-ops. I don't know the feeling of GR towards publicly funded homeschooling in the homeschool community, it is a sticky subject in our area. I'm not sure if the charter public school home school option is available to Grand Rapids but the laws are very friendly to homeschoolers who choose to privately homeschool.

What in particular did you find complicated?