Concerns about moving to Little Rock (Conway, Mayflower: for sale, real estate, rent)

[DeeDee77]

Hello

We are considering moving to Little Rock from Miami, FL
We are sick and tired of the ellevated housing costs (12k per year for taxes, and they will increase again, 5000 for home insurance??)
We also love the outdoors, mountains, hiking, being able to walk on a boulevard with live music. vivisting museums, live music culture.
Florida is really more about the shopping, dinning and beaches (great for a vacation, not so great to live in, if you consider our interests)

We are a young professional couple (well, late thirties) and with a baby on the way.
Traffic here it horrible, so I dont think what I heard about drivers in Little Rock can be so bad.

My concern is isolation. I want to build a new set of friends if we move there
We are very americanized, but of latin origin.
I understand residents of Little Rock are not very nice to newcomers?

oh,and what is the job outlook?
I am a systems analyst/business analyst, my husband is an industrial QA/Safety coordinator, both with over 10 years exp in the industry

How much of that is true?

We own a 300k house here, and will be looking for a 200k house in Little Rock
I don't mind commuting to work, so I hope 200k will get us a nice single family house

Any advise is greatly appreciated

[Sam I Am]

$200K will get you a nice home, your commute won't be nearly as bad as anything in Miami, and you need to look in Hillcrest - a very neat, artsy area of town. Your real estate property taxes, although I think they are ridiculous, probably will run you $3500/year, maybe less...probably less. But what I consider a decent $200,000 house in LR may not be your idea of what you want.

Go to the top center of the screen and do an advanced search on Hillcrest in the Arkansas forum (you'll have to highlight Arkansas on the bottom right of that page) - you will come up with an awful lot of info on Hillcrest. It's an older neighborhood - some smaller homes, lots of larger homes, some fixer-uppers, some completely restored and way out of the $200K market.

I honestly am at a loss to explain why this notion about Arkansas not being friendly to newcomers exists. Is everyone going to rush to your door with a pie and a casserole? Probably not - but of all the places in Little Rock to live, you will find more acceptance of just about anything in Hillcrest. There's a promenade there where lots of people walk - lots of little shops and eating places.

What exactly are you looking for in a home and maybe we can direct you better to where you can get the most bang for your buck? Not everyone enjoys old home ownership!

As far as employment, there's Alltel and Acxiom, Systematics, Stephens Investments...goodness, lots of stuff. I have no idea about the job market, though, and QA/Safety is way out of my league. Have you started looking for jobs yet? Have you visited Little Rock?

As far as outdoors and hiking, that can be done pretty much anywhere in Arkansas except the far east delta area.

C'mon over - you're gonna love it!

[DeeDee77]

Thank you for the feedback, I feel better already

We would like a 3-4 bed, 2 baths, at least 1600 sq feet, big lot, definitively single family house. 1 story is fine. Not too old, hopefully less than 15 year old. if new , even better
I dream with a house where you can hardly see your neighbor's house between the trees. (we are very friendly, but would love to have a big lot, with dogs to run around.)
We are willing to commute for as much as 45 minutes to work.
Is Hillcrest near Little Rock?

We have just beggining the research. Need to plan a mini-vacation to visit and explore. What are local newspapers I can visit online?

[Sam I Am]

Hillcrest is a neighborhood in Little Rock that is north of Markham, which is a baseline street, and south of Cantrell, which starts out running along the river and pretty much follows it E/W.

Okay...hmmm...Leawood is a great area too, but the houses there will typically be 60's and 70's houses, so that's out...I tell you what, if you look at realtor. com you can probably get some ideas. Stay north of Markham or Chenal, west of about Kavanaugh. The farther in east toward the center of the city you are, the older the neighborhoods will be. West Little Rock will have the newer homes...and the longer commute on the strip of hell known as I-630. Look in zip codes 72205, 72207, 72227, 72211, 72212 - and 72210. You might like something out around the Col. Glenn/Stagecoach area. Stagecoach Road is 72209, which is a southwest Little Rock zip - and the people who live in those areas are called 09-ers. There are pockets of 09 that you just want to say no to...but the Col. Glenn area, which would start west of I-430 about even with midtown is a wonderful, more rural area. I believe there are a couple of newer subdivisions out there and also off David O'Dodd Road. Also look out the far end of Bowman Road and Kanis Road, but if you go too far west you'll end up in Chenal, where $200K might buy you someone's guest house. Newer and under $200K might be a trick, but I'm sure there are a ton of new subdivisions I haven't even started to find.

If you don't mind commuting and you want rural, you might keep going west out Cantrell Rd. until it turns into Highway 10 and then go out toward Bigelow or in that general area. Not much comes up for sale out there, but I always thought it was a great country place to live.

When you say "commute", how far are you talking about? You may like Mayflower or the outskirts of Conway as well.

[iamchadswife]

Hello! I grew up in the Hillcrest area, and the person that suggested Hillcrest is right, it is wonderful. However, since you have a baby on the way, this may seem like light years away, but the Little Rock Public School District may not be the best one to consider.

I have heard that Fayettville is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. You may want to Google that and see what you come up with.

Originally Posted by DeeDee77

Hello

We are considering moving to Little Rock from Miami, FL
We are sick and tired of the ellevated housing costs (12k per year for taxes, and they will increase again, 5000 for home insurance??)
We also love the outdoors, mountains, hiking, being able to walk on a boulevard with live music. vivisting museums, live music culture.
Florida is really more about the shopping, dinning and beaches (great for a vacation, not so great to live in, if you consider our interests)

We are a young professional couple (well, late thirties) and with a baby on the way.
Traffic here it horrible, so I dont think what I heard about drivers in Little Rock can be so bad.

My concern is isolation. I want to build a new set of friends if we move there
We are very americanized, but of latin origin.
I understand residents of Little Rock are not very nice to newcomers?

oh,and what is the job outlook?
I am a systems analyst/business analyst, my husband is an industrial QA/Safety coordinator, both with over 10 years exp in the industry

How much of that is true?

We own a 300k house here, and will be looking for a 200k house in Little Rock
I don't mind commuting to work, so I hope 200k will get us a nice single family house

Any advise is greatly appreciated

[westlittlerock]

Any where in west Little Rock is about 25 minutes to downtown. The growth is really picking up out here and the average family home in the area is going to run from $250,000 to about $750,000. The homes are all nestled in big lots with a multitude of trees and plenty of spectacular views of the mountains and ridges. In the zip code 72223, there are more developments and suburban style brick houses everywhere. In 72135, you have a view of Pinnacle Mountain and homes with great prices of the $200,000 to $600,000 range, and bigger lots (as in like 2-10 acres)

[westlittlerock]

I don't really agree with your views on west little rock.
The area out by Pinnacle Mountain and Bigelow is growing. People who do not want a suburban rowhouse choose to live out here with 5 acres and a beautiful view of the valley and the mountains. They also enjoy some of the most incredibly astounding sunsets of all time. The real estate out here is more in the way of suburban and exurban development.

[Stormcrow73]

Rowhouse?!?!?! I've never see a rowhouse in LR!! You have either detached singles, condos, or duplexes in the low rent areas.

For the OP: LR sounds like a great place for you to me! I think you'll have no problems meeting new friends. LR is lot more cultured than most people would dare to think. Sure, it's no Miami but I think it's a great mix of urbanity without a lot of the traffic and bad attitudes that typically come with a large city. You're minutes away from EXCELLENG hiking. You also have access to a good amount of live music. However, the live music scene here is rather homogeneous compared to what you're probably used to. If you want to find out and sample some of that, there's a great site on MySpace called Little Rock Scene that will tell you just about everyone that's going to be playing. Museums...well, that's not so vibrant but we have a few.

[Sam I Am]

Originally Posted by westlittlerock

I don't really agree with your views on west little rock.
The area out by Pinnacle Mountain and Bigelow is growing. People who do not want a suburban rowhouse choose to live out here with 5 acres and a beautiful view of the valley and the mountains. They also enjoy some of the most incredibly astounding sunsets of all time. The real estate out here is more in the way of suburban and exurban development.

I am assuming you mean tract house and not row house...and yes, the area is growing out that way, I think I said that. I said Chenal may not be the best bang for the buck, as $200K isn't going to buy you just a whole lot in the actual Chenal upscale area.

Bigelow is a good area for value. If you don't mind staring into the sun and beating your brains out on the Cantrell Rd. commute both directions it's great...and it is also fairly far removed from a lot of the amenities that that OP asked about. By your own account the houses run $250K or so on the bottom end in west Little Rock, which is also outside their parameters. I was trying to match them up with their wish list.

[DeeDee77]

Thank you for all the insight!!

The more I read and research LR sounds like perfect for us.
The Scenery, the activities, the lifestyle, the housing costs
And the winters are not that cold (Coming from Miami, 60 is cold)
We are definitively not Miami material

We don't mind commuting as long as it is less that 45 min.
I currently do 22miles one way and it takes me 45 min due to traffic...

I think the main thing now will be for us to see how possible is to get jobs there and on what salary range, so we will know how much house we can afford.
I guess the main plan is, research some more, make the decision, create some savings, put our house here on sell (this can take a few months due to current market) Then move, rent and look for a job.
Unless we can get some phone interviews, but in previous experience, unless the city has a lot of demand, this is not very effective

What are good resources to research for a job?
What are the main industries?
Any industry will do for me because I am in IT, but my husband is in industrial quality assurance and occupational safety. We has worked in the industries of Mining, Oil and Metal manufacturing.

He is also does graphics art on the side

I was too looking at Fayeteville, but now sure how to make a living there.