possible move to try mich?? (Detroit, Ann Arbor: housing, rent, motel)

[KimmyLynn]

hi there my hubby was recently offered a really great position in troymich and it is a great advance but i am a lil worried i currently live in a small quaint town called milan ohio i love it is very historical with older homes and is in the best school district ever!!!! thast a lil back ground info... but i am wondering what troy is like?? are there any nice small towns like mine nearby?? are there any great school systems?? how is troys??? i am a lil hesitant about moving so far away from family and friends so anyone who can give me any kind of info imput is great i am alos looking for an older century type home what are housing prices there????
thank you so much i do appreciate all feed back!! ÜÜÜ

[stock66]

I think maybe you are looking for Victorian age homes? Romeo might have some of what you are looking for. I can't tell you much about their schools. I can think of other towns still have small amounts of Victorian houses in their original downtown areas but they have grown considerably and are surrounded by lots of newer housing tracts, somewhere like Clarkston.
If you are willing to move up past the turn of the century Royal Oak has more to offer but I wouldn't say it is going to feel small town.
Troy is more big suburban sprawl"ish" not small town.

[cardwellave]

Troy is definitely one of those subdivided cold towns. If you want more of a small town atmosphere, try Royal Oak or Birmingham, that is if you can afford it. Otherwise maybe try Ferndale, or maybe commute from Milford, Romeo, Wyandotte....All have sort of that small town atmosphere. Wyandotte is surrounded by other towns but it definitely feels like an escape there, on the river and everything. What kind of budget do you have?

[Cato the Elder]

You'll find very few Victorian era houses near Troy. After owning Victorians on the West and East Coasts, we looked for one ourselves in the area. Those you find from that period will often be "frontier houses" with very little of the exterior and interior visual cues that one expects from a Victorian. Most of the Victorians we found were in the western Wayne County area near Plymouth. It would be a bit of a commute to Troy.

If you are willing to look at later periods, there are plenty of Craftsmans and Tudors in Royal Oak, Birmingham, Rochester, Ferndale, Huntington Woods, and Pleasant Ridge. The last two in particular have a high percentage of them. Much of the building boom in metro Detroit coincided with the rise of the automobile, so high-quality houses with detailing appear in number after the Victorian period.

As you might know, these houses are as cute as a button, but get ready for small/no closets, small kitchens, few bathrooms, no central a/c, and impractical layouts for modern expectations. Good luck.

[UpperPeninsulaRon]

Originally Posted by KimmyLynn

hi there my hubby was recently offered a really great position in troymich and it is a great advance but i am a lil worried i currently live in a small quaint town called milan ohio i love it is very historical with older homes and is in the best school district ever!!!! thast a lil back ground info... but i am wondering what troy is like?? are there any nice small towns like mine nearby?? are there any great school systems?? how is troys??? i am a lil hesitant about moving so far away from family and friends so anyone who can give me any kind of info imput is great i am alos looking for an older century type home what are housing prices there????
thank you so much i do appreciate all feed back!! ÜÜÜ

Congratulations on the opportunity that your husband was offered. I worked in Troy for a number of years and also at locations that required me to travel on I-75 (the interstate runs right through Troy) through Troy. As far as the small town situation, there really is nothing remotely like that within an hour's commute. As some of the posters have said, there are cities that have pockets of home styles that you are looking for, but certainly not a small town atmosphere.

Troy is a very congested area (I used to spend thirty minutes to get from Big Beaver and I-75 and still be in sight of my office building where I worked on the rush hour commute!). This is not meant to discourage you, but you and your husband really should spend time in the area on a weekday, during rush hour periods, to get a feel for the concentration of people and places that you will see on a regular basis.

As far a schools, shopping, restaurants, etc. the location is great. There are no problems in that arena. Best of luck in your decision making.

[KimmyLynn]

well we definitely like small town but we want our kids to be in a great school system!!!my son has some learning disabilities and needs some extra help so spec ed dept would have to be great he needs help in reading and math comprehension!!!i do like older homes and love victorians well the job offer is pretty substansial so we could afford a lil more but i dont wanna spend money just to spend i am not wasteful like that and neither do i desire to be "house poor" the fact that hes able to sell our cnc lathe machine for a good penny is definitely the help this will be down payment and more for a house but i want a nice safe neighborhood we moved from a farm town to a small town and kids finally got a chance to go outside and play and walk around town to friends they never were able to do that before so we love this!!!! i have done country, city and small town and definitely outta all 3 like smaller town community!!! so i appreciate all the help his work would be in troy!! how are the other school systems ??i really dont wanna go over board on the price personally i wouldnt wanna spend more then 200,000 and i still think that is high!!! around here we were looking at like 150,000 and under i really do appreciate all and any advice
thanks alot

[Cato the Elder]

For special circumstances like learning disabilities, you really need a larger school district that has significant experience with these cases. For instance, Birmingham and Grosse Pointe are generally considered top districts in the state, but neither do exceptionally well with special ed from what I've heard. They just do not see enough of it! I had a colleague with an autistic child move from Huntington Woods to Troy specifically for this reason.

Cities like Troy and Ann Arbor fit this description, but the problem is you won't get the small-town feel that you desire. Your best bet is to find a small town that feeds into a larger, well-respected school district. The other option is to live in a place like Pleasant Ridge and send your children to private schools.

Edit: A good option might be Rochester. There are plenty of older homes with character there and it's a large, well-respected school district. The commute wouldn't be unbearable either - straight down I-75. I don't personally know how good Rochester's special ed services are, but it might be worth a look.

[dieselthedog]

As mentioned before, Big Beaver can be real busy especially during rush hour. My uncle lives in Troy on the west side in Beach forest. They are real nice homes and you would get the Troy school district if you wanted. You should check the foreclosure listings because maybe you could get a real nice deal since you didn't want to be "house poor". On the other side of Troy, the one that borders sterling heights, they have homes in the $200-300,000. Most aren't brand new homes, but you still get the Troy school district. I would however like to say one of my cousins had a learning disability and they pulled him from TSD and enrolled in him Eton Academy in Birmingham and they were pleased. It is a school to help kids with with LD. Also, there are cheaper homes at the 15 & Livernois area. They are smaller and if you like these then great, but the kids in my cousin's school did refer to those homes as the "ghetto of troy", although the definition of "ghetto", it wouldn't' really be.

[MichiganKella]

Don't go to Troy Schools but there is nothing wrong with the town if you have an open mind.

[saraht]

Grosse Pointe is about a 30 Minute or less drive from Grosse Pointe. We have many older homes late 1800's - present. Most houses were built between 1920 - 1935. The best schools in the area. High School is in the top 200. The schools are small and offer the most personal attention that I have ever seen in a public school. Houses prices were high, but are dropping really fast. You can get a 3500 sf home within walking distance to a great school for less than $400,000.