Hello from a very excited Family! (Huntington, Pea Ridge: for sale, real estate, apartment complexes)

[jolobro]

Hi! . My first post on the website and really just to say Hi. We are a family from the Uk and I have had the exciting news of a job offer in Huntington WV. The immigration process is long but hopefully we will be making the move towards the end of this year!!!
We are now busy looking on the internet at everything you could imagine re the Huntington area and trying to begin to make some plans!
I am hoping someone can help me with a few questions! (I am sure there will be more coming also!)
We have children aged 6 and 3. So when we arrive will be grade 3 and Pre-K. I habe looked on the Cabell County website and have been researching schools but i am unsure who i contact initially to discuss schooling?
Also re property, we are looking to live in the barboursville area - which i think will be close enought o my job and the schools etc look good. We wont be able to buy initially as we will need to build up credit scoring in the US so will rent until we are able. We are unsure whether we want to rent a house or apartment , cost will obviously come into our decision as we want to save as big a deposit as we can before we buy our own place. Have been looking at various sites re apartments etc but any advice / reviews would be great.
I will leave the questions here for now, i could go on forever!
We are just so excited and want to find out as much as we can and start our preparations for the start of our New Beginning!!!!
Thanks in Advance!!

[snorpus]

Welcome to West Virginia, Jolo! I hope everything goes smoothly as you prepare to move.

Tim Bailey is our resident expert on Huntington, but you'll find the rest of us chiming in from time to time.

Cheers!

[tbailey1138]

First of all welcome to the Huntington area! It's a great place to live and I hope that you truly make it your home. To address your questions: If you live in the Barboursville area, your children will go to either the Village of Barboursville Elementary, Davis Creek Elementary or Martha Elementary, depending on where you live. All are good schools. The best place to look for houses to rent would be the website of the local newspaper, the Herald-Dispatch. In terms of apartment complexes, there are several in the Barboursville area but some of the newer ones are Waterford Village, Royal Oaks and Garden Park Apartments. Here are links to all of the above listed schools and apartments.

Schools

Village of Barboursville Elementary

Martha Elementary

Davis Creek Elementary

Apartments

Royal Oaks at Pea Ridge

Waterford Village Apartments Ratings, Reviews

Garden Park

Barboursville

Village of Barboursville > Home

Barboursville Park (http://www.barboursville.org/About/BarboursvillePark/tabid/74/Default.aspx - broken link)


If you can't find what you are looking for in the areas listed above and you look at Huntington, the area around Ritter Park is great for young families. My wife and I live a block from Ritter Park with a 5 yr old, a 2 yr old and another on the way. Ritter Park has a wonderful playground for the kids and being so close, we walk them over. Our son is currently going to the Early Education STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) School at Marshall but will likely go to Southside Elementary next year. Southside is a brand new school and is one of the best in the county as well. The Huntington Middle School is actually built on the same campus but is a separate building which will make for a smooth transition into middle school. There is actually a house for rent not too far from me that is also close to the park, tennis courts, etc if you are interested. This would put you close to hospitals and downtown as well. I've also included some links to area apartment listings and the homes section of the local newspaper. Here are some links to the things listed above:

Schools

Southside Elementary

Huntington Middle School

Apartments/Real Estate

Seneca Ridge Townhomes

Homes Magazine

Huntington WV Homes For Sale | Tri-State Real Estate | The Herald-Dispatch

Herald-Dispatch -- Classifieds

Huntington Links

City of Huntington, West Virginia

Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District

Home - South Side Neighborhood Organization of Huntington WV

Cabell Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau highlighting Huntington, Barboursvil

The Greater Huntington Community Web Portal

I hope this answered your questions above. Be sure to let me know if you have ANY other questions and I'll do my best to answer them. If there is a house for rent that you want me to check out for you, just let me know and I'll do my best to check it out for you and give you some info on it. Hope this helps and welcome to Huntington!

Tim

[spunkydawg]

Originally Posted by jolobro

We have children aged 6 and 3. So when we arrive will be grade 3 and Pre-K.

Hello! Sorry, I can't help with any of your Huntington questions, but the part quoted above caught my eye. Not sure if things are different in the UK, but here I don't think your 6-year-old would be going into 3rd grade. Even if s/he turned 7 soon, that'd still probably just be 2nd grade. Unless s/he's super smart and mature, I guess.

Anyway, good luck with this big change -- I'm sure there'll be a lot of culture shock. You sure you're ready for America?? I've lived here my whole life, and all things considered it's still no doubt one of the best countries in the world (IMHO), especially our little WV corner of it ... but man, it drives me crazy sometimes. I guess that's true anywhere you go though.