Lee's Summit commute to North Kansas City? (Independence, Liberty: house, to buy)

[jeff lackey]

We're about to take a job in North Kansas City - the address is E. 14th in N. Kansas City if that makes a difference. We were looking at Liberty as a place to live, sounds like nice smaller town atmosphere (and hopefully not the congestion, etc. of Naperville, IL!) with access to the amenities. But someone recommended Lee's Summit as a nice family suburb also.

My question - how bad would the commute from Lee's Summit to North Kansas City be? I assume the commute from Liberty to N. Kansas City is easier, but just looking at options (we'll be visiting next week, and just wonder if it's worth looking at Lee's Summit.)

EDIT: Based on a friend's recommendation, we're also looking at Overland Park, Kansas - so same questions!

Thanks!

[wiseone]

Hi-
It would take you about 40 minutes from Lee's Summit to commute. Overland Park is over-rated with a lot of traffic and you would have to go through or around downtown to get North, so it doesn't make a lot of sense. It depends on your price range, but if you're looking 300,000 and up, a great community with wonderful amentities is Staley Farms in the Northland. It would be about 20 minutes to the area you are talking about.

[.cbr!]

Lees summit to N KC would take over an hour. I work downtown and it takes me 45 minutes most days to get to work from Lees Summit. It takes a little over half an hour to get home.

Overland Park is a nice place to live to. But expect the same drive. And everything takes longer to drive to over there. There is a lot more traffic in that area. And everything is more expensive in general.

[rondamarchant]

Hello,

I've been searching through past posts. Did you have any luck finding a place in the Great KC area? Moving can always be challenging. I have some great websites I'll send your way if you're interested that let you check out schools, crime, etc. in different areas. You may have already down this so don't want to overload you with it unless you'd like.

If you're already settled into the area, hope you are enjoying it! This hot weather won't last too terribly long! Promise!

[jeff lackey]

We've decided on Liberty. I'm living in a little efficiency room in Liberty while I work in NKC, and we try to get our house in Naperville sold, and I really like it here. For the moment our stress is trying to figure out how to buy a house and get closed and moved in in July (school for my kid starts early here, August 15th!) before having the money from our current house for a down payment.

[rondamarchant]

I bet that is a stressful situation. I hope your current home sells fast so you can get your family here and settled in. Liberty is a great area. I'm sure you'll continue to like it there. So much postive growth lately! Good luck!

[mjb62676]

Parkville is nice too...

[jkay88]

Looks like you've already made part of the transition!

But I wanted to reply w/ the fact that we live in Lee's Summit now & commute to NKC & it sucks. The time spent driving is time wasted, in my opinion (about 40 minutes, and that is w/o traffic; depends on what shift we are on).

We will be moving to Liberty when our home sells. I'm rather excited... I love Lee's Summit (have lived here for 15 years), but it is just too crowded now. Liberty is everything I loved about Lee's Summit 15 years ago, but w/ perks (there is shopping!! 15 years ago you had to go to Independence/Kansas City/Overland Park to shop).

We've been visiting Liberty more & more lately to get a feel for the city & I have fallen completely in love w/ it! It seems like such a great place to raise a family (not that Lee's Summit isn't)... small town atmosphere w/ great city perks!

I hope that you get your family here soon!

Take care,
-Jocelyn