working in olathe, need advice on where to move. :) (Independence: low income, appointed)

[ase_tek]

I've been working/living in olathe for the past 9 months. I'm renting a town home with my wife and the lease is up in late june. we would love to buy a house when we get out but I dont think we can afford to stay in Olathe with the type of house we are wanting. I like living here everything is close. As some people have said on the forum, it is a little bit of a dull place to live. nothing really special about it, but not a bad place to live/work.

anyways we are looking for a house with 3 beds X baths, and a two car garage. unless we get a fixer upper we have not found any in our price range in Olathe (120Kish but lower is always good) we have a baby on the way so we would like something with good schools. after reading for some time it appears that north KC is gonna be our best bet. parkville, gladstone, oakview, or riverside kinda fit into the north KC category. I dont want to go too far north, my comute will get longer this will most likely be a long-term place for us to live where ever we buy. maybe something w/o a KC address to avoid the 1% tax would be nice.

My sister goes to park university so I've been north a few times, also used to live in warrensburg for 10 years so KC is not so new to me. we were originally thinking grandview but read enough on here to stay away from there. living/working in different state will suck i hear, but like i said we should be able to afford more house over in MO. I hear there are power plants in platte county so any advice on where to go to stay away from that but still get the good schools and safe place to live would be great!

any advice or knowledge would be great, thanks!

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by ase_tek

I've been working/living in olathe for the past 9 months. I'm renting a town home with my wife and the lease is up in late june. we would love to buy a house when we get out but I dont think we can afford to stay in Olathe with the type of house we are wanting. I like living here everything is close. As some people have said on the forum, it is a little bit of a dull place to live. nothing really special about it, but not a bad place to live/work.

anyways we are looking for a house with 3 beds X baths, and a two car garage. unless we get a fixer upper we have not found any in our price range in Olathe (120Kish but lower is always good) we have a baby on the way so we would like something with good schools. after reading for some time it appears that north KC is gonna be our best bet. parkville, gladstone, oakview, or riverside kinda fit into the north KC category. I dont want to go too far north, my comute will get longer this will most likely be a long-term place for us to live where ever we buy. maybe something w/o a KC address to avoid the 1% tax would be nice.

My sister goes to park university so I've been north a few times, also used to live in warrensburg for 10 years so KC is not so new to me. we were originally thinking grandview but read enough on here to stay away from there. living/working in different state will suck i hear, but like i said we should be able to afford more house over in MO. I hear there are power plants in platte county so any advice on where to go to stay away from that but still get the good schools and safe place to live would be great!

any advice or knowledge would be great, thanks!

For your price range I would look into Gladstone and possibly older homes in Liberty. Those two towns both have a good selection of older homes that won't break the bank. The commute to Olathe from those areas would be longer than 30 minutes with rush hour traffic. However, I-35 runs directly southwest from Clay County MO to JOCO KS.

[RjRobb2]

I am a life-long northlander and love it up here. I live in KC North right outside of Gladstone which is where I grew up. Its nice up here and the housing is reasonable. I also attend Park University.

I would definately start checking out homes up this way. I dont think you will be disappointed.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by RjRobb2

I am a life-long northlander and love it up here. I live in KC North right outside of Gladstone which is where I grew up. Its nice up here and the housing is reasonable. I also attend Park University.

I would definately start checking out homes up this way. I dont think you will be disappointed.

I agree. Many areas of the "northland" are affordable compared with the overpriced and overcrowded JOCO cities.

[kcmo]

First off, why would you avoid a massive part of the city just so you don't have to pay the Etax? It's 1%. If you make 50k a year, it's like 40 bucks a month and taxes in general in KCMO are much lower than most of the suburbs. Trash pickup is free in KCMO, that alone is close to the 40 bucks a month. Water, sewer, etc are also lower (although that might change soon). In general, it’s a wash. You have to look at all taxes and expenses before coming to such as conclusion.

Bottom line is, why not pay the tax. It's one of the only ways KCMO gets some revenue from suburbanites to help pay for things like the zoo and starlight. The bad part about the Etax is when you work in Kansas and they don’t take it out of your paychecks. KCMO companies take it out and you don’t notice it, but having to pay 500 bucks to KCMO at the end of the year can be a hassle, but it’s not more expensive because you pay less in other taxes in the city and state vs Kansas.

There are a lot of very nice homes in KCMO both north and south of the river. Don't overlook them just because of the Etax.

120k will not get you much on the MO side either. Olathe home prices are not all that far from Liberty, Lee's Summit and Blue Springs. Leawood and Overland Park are much higher, but Olathe has a lot of modest housing too. I would not go clear to Liberty if you work in Olathe and I’m not sure if you would find much for that price in that area anyway.

If you want a modest home on the MO side I would look at Southeastern Independence around Lee's Summit Road and I-70. You would be in the Blue Springs district but in Indep which has lower taxes and the homes are less expensive. There are some very nice, yet modest neighborhoods along I-70 and 39th street between Noland and Lee's Summit Road. There is some upperbracket in this area too, so it's not like you are in a low income area. The commute would not be too bad since you can take 435 instead of 470 from MO to KS which is much less congested.

Same thing with northern or eastern Raytown. Very nice areas and nice homes in that price range. Most people in Johnson County don’t know that there are nice areas in Raytown and Independence.

Another area as already mentioned is Gladstone and KCMO along 169 in the Northland. You want to stay close to 169 so you can get to Olathe quickly via 635. Nice area, good schools and very close to a lot of "stuff" like Downtown, Zona Rosa, KCI etc.

You also might want to try SKC around Redbridge, Martin City or Waldo if schools are not as big an issue. The Grandview and Center districts are not as bad as KCMO, but they are not perfect either.

Cass County (Belton/Raymore) would be a good bet, you can shoot across 150 to Olathe and homes are cheaper there and it’s booming.

Grandview has some new areas going up near 150 east of 71 you might look into. Lee’s Summit would be a horrible commute and probably out your price range. Parkville doesn’t have much. It’s either a 500k home or a 50 year old shack in Parkville.

Also, look at southern KCK around its border with Shawnee, if you want to stay in Kansas.

Hope that helps.

[ase_tek]

thanks for the replies, I appreciate the input so far! as far as KC tax goes its not a huge deal just preferable to not pay it. if I found a house that I wanted I'd take it if it had a KC address. 120k is plenty to buy a decent house in a safe/nice place if you know how to shop for one and where to look. we are first time home buyers and are very young (we are both 20) so price is kind of an issue :/ and like I said baby on the way. we have good credit but no long history (obviously) so we are in the process of figuring out how much we can borrow.

we are still looking at houses in both kansas and missouri sides. A friend at work lives in parkville he commutes to olathe. he said its about a 30min drive. He suggested gladstone to me or parkville. he loves it up that way. moving to liberty would probably stretch my commute too long for my taste. anything over 30min is gonna be stretching it for me. so we are still looking in towns in kansas as well (but that is left to the kansas forum i guess) also i have a 10-7 schedule at work, so rush hour wont be really in the equation

so after we get an idea of how much of a loan we are actually able to get we will start talking to some realtors and such. I have an uncle who is a realtor in SO. CA so he is kinda helping me with real estate questions i may have. I am new to buying a house lol. well thanks for your ideas if anyone has any more keep them flowing the more options the better!

[northbound74]

We live in Independence, and like it quite a bit. We paid 85000 for a 3 bed 1 bath rancher, full basement, garage, and fenced yard... in great condition, in a quiet, clean, neighborhood full of similar houses. Perfect for first time buyers, and a lot of the houses that have been sold have been bought by young couples, many with children. It seems to be catching on as a alternative to the higher priced areas. There are a good number of houses like this along 39th and 35th, especially east of Chrysler. They're improving the infrastructure by leaps and bounds all around us.
This is all the Indy school district, except for the extreme southeast corner of town, which is in the Blue Springs district. Houses there are generally bigger and more expensive, but there is a small area along 35th east of Lee's Summit Road that have slightly older split-levels that may be a little cheaper.
A small part of southwest Independence is in the Raytown district. The rest of western Independence will be in the Indy district starting next year.
Here's a map that might help... and drive you're computer nuts:

http://www.indep.k12.mo.us/images/blue_layout/boundary_maps/all_district_bmap.pdf (broken link)

Also, we liked Gladstone a lot when looking for houses. They seem to have a similar housing situation there, with prices and styles being similar.
Belton's not my style, but I know people there who seem to like it okay. Houses there will also be similar price-wise.

[burnt]

How about Paola? I know homes there are still pretty good values.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by burnt

How about Paola? I know homes there are still pretty good values.

Paola is more rural, and housing there will not appreciate very well compared with the established suburban areas. Also, the roads leading from Olathe to Paola are not the greatest. They were torn up when I drove through that area a few years ago. Maybe they were widening the road leading from Olathe to Spring Hill? It looked like some of the land in that area was being developed with more ugly looking cookie cutter houses. That may have slowed quite a bit with the housing bust.

[MI Girl]

Have you looked at some of the older homes in Lenexa? They are not high priced and close to everything. They have 3 Bedrooms and some have 2 -2 1/2 baths. You may need to fix it up a little, but you would be closer to everything than up north...just a thought.