Considering Moving to Sherwood or Conway (Little Rock, North Little Rock: apartments, for rent, job market)

[Kalli11]

My husband and I are considering moving to either Conway or Sherwood Arkansas, we currently live in the bootheel of Missouri and want to move somewhere with more opprotunity for jobs and for further education. We are pretty much entry level workers, so we are looking for renting an apartment around the 400 dollar a month range. Good neighborhood, pretty conservative town. Any one know anything about these towns? Good or bad would be wonderful! Thanks!!!

[Sam I Am]

Kalli, go to the main Arkansas page and there is a block called "search this forum" - click that and type Conway or Sherwood into the box and hit enter. You will come up with a gazillion threads on anything and everything, and many of them will be very recent threads. Take a look through those and then ask away on more specific questions you may have.

I will make one comment - if you are moving to central Arkansas for educational opportunity, Conway is probably your best bet. If you are moving for work it is TIGHT. I surely wouldn't make the move without having a job firmly in place. What kind of occupation are you interested in?

Are you wanting to live in a complex or like in a duplex in a neighborhood? I see some things in your budget by googling Conway Arkansas apartments but I have no personal knowledge and will leave that for someone else.

[strumpeace]

I thought you wanted to move to Martin, TN?

Oh, well. If you're looking at Conway, here's a guarantee: You are not going to find anything decent for $400 per month. You can live in Perryville for $400 a month and commute to Conway. However, as Sam wrote, I would not come to Central Arkansas right now without having a job already lined up.

[podmate]

There are more entry level jobs in Little Rock/North Little Rock than there are in Conway. Conway is a fairly small city while Little Rock/North Little Rock has many more businesses and is much larger.

As far as education.
The Little Rock Metro area has more educational opportunities than Conway.

In Conway you have (to my knowledge) 3 colleges -- UCA, Hendrix and some religious college that I can't remember the name of. There may be a junior college or two that I don't know of though.

In Little Rock you have UALR. You also have a bunch of junior colleges and places that offer specialty programs.

Don't limit your self to Sherwood. There are areas in Little Rock and North Little Rock that are just as nice, just as affordable and IMHO don't have such over-the-top aggressive cops.

If you could list the types of education you are looking for (full time, part time (days or nights) -- types of degree) we might be able to steer you towards one of the junior colleges or UCA or UALR.

[Kalli11]

Yes, I know about Martin LOL, We are just looking in about a 4 hour radius of where we are from and places we've visited that we like. Conway was one of them but we only visited for a day and at that it was at a tournament! I've been to Little Rock once. Educational goals, unsure but probably something technical, my husband would like to teach college level. Thanks for the replies and advice so far(didn't know abou the city forum thing, sorry about that!)

[podmate]

As far as either technical education or teaching education, UALR is the best in the area. You can go up to Doctoral level in education (teaching) and up to Masters level in the computer fields.

UALR is a great value for the money and type of education you get. Just don't live anywhere near there.

[Aporkalypse]

UCA in Conway was formerly the Arkansas State Teachers' College, it has great programs for that profession, better than UALR and even UA for that.

The job market in Conway and NLR/LR is no worse than anywhere else in the country right now, it's actually pretty good with the Hewlett-Packard, Welspun, and LM Glasfiber facilities coming on along with the Dassault expansion. There is a little iffyness with Alltel's purchase by Verizon but those job losses will be at the top end, not in your range.

Conway has great schools but if you are going to be commuting to LR/NLR Sherwood is a lot closer. The commute from Conway to LR at peak hours can be brutal.

[bchris02]

Originally Posted by Aporkalypse

Conway has great schools but if you are going to be commuting to LR/NLR Sherwood is a lot closer. The commute from Conway to LR at peak hours can be brutal.

Which is something you'll definitely want to consider with $4 gas. Some people who moved to Conway to "get out of the city" are now wanting to move back to LR because the fuel bills are killing them. If you drive an Explorer or a Tahoe, it will run you between $300-400/month.

[debbieturner13]

So now with gas prices being lower, what would you say about Conway and Sherwood. Is housing a little bit more expensive to rent in Sherwood? Also, how far is Conway from Arkansas Children's hospital. And how is traffic about 6:00 in the morning?

[podmate]

Originally Posted by debbieturner13

So now with gas prices being lower, what would you say about Conway and Sherwood. Is housing a little bit more expensive to rent in Sherwood? Also, how far is Conway from Arkansas Children's hospital. And how is traffic about 6:00 in the morning?

Don't count on gas staying this 'cheap'.

Housing prices in Sherwood are not that much different than housing prices in parts of WLR and NLR. Personally, I avoid Sherwood like the plague because of their police department. Housing is a bit more expensive in Sherwood than in Conway.

Commute: The commute from Conway to Children's is pretty harsh (if you are hitting the rush hours). Getting from WLR, NLR or Sherwood to Children's would be much easier/quicker than coming in from Conway. If you are coming in at 6am, then you will not hit any traffic (barring accidents).
Conway is about 30 minutes from Children's. Lets call it 35 miles.