Moving to jacksonville, fl (fit in, 2010, apartment)

[ch1992jones]

My family and I are moving to Jacksonville, FL in 2010 and looking for a nice place to live with a good school system. My intentions are to buy a home with 3+ bedrooms, 2+ baths, 1600-2000 sq ft, and in the price range of 100K to 150K in a nice neighborhood. Can anyone provide some recommendations of places to live.

[Joe 4520832257]

"Nice neighborhood" is a pretty subjective thing, so a $150,000 limit might be a problem depending on your personal preferences.

Generally speaking, Mandarin and Fletcher are the good public high schools, which are in Mandarin and the Beaches respectively. $150,000 for a 3 bedroom might not be possible, but I haven't looked in awhile so I'm not sure.

Then there are the far out suburbs in Clay and St Johns, which have generally high rated schools throughout the entire Northern parts of the counties.

[cg3373]

wandering about an area called tattersall at tapestry park and the area around it. is it a safe place to raise a family? and what fun things to do in the area?

[TREE4309]

Tapestry Park is in the "Tinseltown" area of Jacksonville's Southside...its surrounded by dozens of large employment centers (i.e. business parks and corporate campuses), nice apartment and condo complexes, plenty of restaurants, shopping centers, etc. I would say that it is a safe area, but it's in one of Jacksonville's most congested areas because of everything around it. With that said, you're 5 minutes to I-95 and 20 minutes to the beach.

[cg3373]

ty so much for the info.....

[fsu813]

and walking distance to nothing

[TREE4309]

True about walking to nothing. Living in that area would not be my cup of tea, but Tapestry Park does look like a nice project.

[newmommy40]

I live in Duval County and used to teach in this county as well. I now teach in Clay County. I am zoned for Mandarin and even taught at Fletcher, which was just ranked at 133 by Newsweek. In fact, quite a few schools in Duval made the "Catching Up" list in Newsweek. This means they had high AP participation, but low test scores. This is where I have a problem...the reason the AP participation is high is because in some schools students are 'pushed' into taking AP courses although they may not have the work ethic needed to succeed in the courses. I can tell you that in Clay County, the numbers may be important, but nothing I have seen in this county takes precedence over education. My child will be attending school in Clay County. With that being said, there are many places to consider in the Jacksonville area.

With the housing market the way it is, some nice areas may fit into your budget. Consider the zip codes 32257,32258,32223,32259,32266,32250. 32266 and 32250 are beach zip codes and I doubt you will be able to find anything out there in your price range, but it never hurts to look...both of these zip codes are zoned for Fletcher High School. I just went to the Realtor.com website and typed in 32258 and found homes at 150,000 and less...more condos than homes, but still some homes. Try Realtor and type in those zip codes to see if anything interests you. One neat thing about the website, is it shows the schools that are zoned for the home location.

Clay County and St. Johns County aren't that far out, it is all relative. These may be areas to consider...especially Clay, as the homes may run a tad bit less...and in some instances with more land. St. Johns County is a nice alternative to Clay especially if you enjoy the ocean. Less driving time than from Clay.

Good luck with your search.

[fsu813]

there are a million magnet schools in Jax, so you don't have to live in good school zone to have your kid attend a good school. it's evry common for kids to go to magnet schools not in thier neighborhood.

ex) Stanton, Paxon, & DA for highschool, Darnell Cookman & JW Johnson for middle school, etc.

[miralinda]

We are planning to buy a house in Jacksonville, FL but Can anyone tell me a GOOD area to buy a home?. Good neiborghood and Good Schools.