Looking for opinions on Relocating to the Ozarks (Kansas City, Springfield: tornado, travel)

[MoAppleGirl]

For the couple who's son is in Branson. Springfield would be ideal for you. It has the amenities of a bigger city and is less than an hour from Branson. You expressed concern for not being a Christian. Although we're in the middle of the Bible Belt & churches abound, I would consider Springfield a liberal town, while the suburbs would be conservative. There are 1/2 a dozen colleges/universities (3 are Christian & the others typical liberal educ). There are lots of performing arts & an active downtown area. You also mentioned health concerns--Springfield has great medical, with 2 major hospitals and lots of specialties. Branson also has a hospital. If you don't want to live directly in Springfield, there are 3 basic options for "larger" towns -- Rogersville (east), Nixa/Ozark (south), and Republic (west). The Nixa area would be closer to Branson and is a small town that's had an influx of retirees and creation of upscale subdivisions. It's experiencing a lot of growth as a suburb of Springfield. Republic has a Lowe's (new this year), Wal-Mart supercenter, Walgreens, etc...but has not been touted as a relocation destination. Rogersville doesn't have any big name shopping, but it's very close to Springfield and would be an easy treck to Branson. Rogersville would come into the south side of Springfield...just about 8 miles from the major mall & other stores and 10 miles from the hospital. Downtown Springfield is closer to the northern edge.
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I've lived 25 mi away from Springfield for the majority of my life & think it's a wonderful place to live. I also lived in Rolla (near Ft Leonard Wood), Jefferson City and Cape Girardeau, so I'd be happy to answer questions on those areas, too.

[SW Missouri Dave]

Hey MOAppleGirl - let's keep Webster County our little secret

[Christy]

I'm talking about ozark the town. We have decided on Ozark just because of jobs and rentals but when we go to buy property to build on I am not sure we will stay there. It just depends on if we find what we want..but we will stay somewhere around there.
My husband does construction..he is a foreman..basically he runs all of it..they build about 100 or so homes a year so I'm hoping he won't have trouble finding a job around there. I'm also hoping to find a place to rent that will fit all of us. So any info I will def appreciate..Thanks guys..

[Christy]

Where is everyone at?

[CALIGIRLLIVESINMO]

I'm from Bakersfield, CA and my family and I moved to a small town in MO that had NO WAL-MART no NOTHING! A couple of family business were there but that was about it. We moved from CA to MO about 17 years ago. Now I currently live in Springfield. Let me tell you that the traffic is HORRIBLE! People are in too big of a hurry to get no where! I would recommend living in a smaller town. Personally I think there is nothing to do here in Springfield. Springfield has a lot of churches, wal-marts, and banks. Perfect for a family. Hope this helps to some of you.

[mrowzee]

Hey - We live in Houston and plan to relocate to the northwest side of Branson this fall. We are so tired of the heat and the population here. We visited the area in Jan and fell in love with it, so I am setting up interviews for June and then will determine when we physically move. We will either live on acreage or a lakeview property. The real estate is comparable to Houston, but we want 4 seasons, without them being extreme, so southern Missouri was the best bet and still affordable. I just hope we bet the RUSH. I think the baby boomers are moving around like fireants. ha ha

[SW Missouri Dave]

Here is a graph that appeared in the Springfield Newspaper today. Might help some of you get an idea of where its growing and where its not - in the Ozarks.

http://www.news-leader.com/assets/jpg/DO2398543.JPG (broken link)

[momandanurse]

CA girl needs help. I'm planning to sell my house in San Diego and move to MO. I lived in St. Louis for 6 years but moved back to my home state of CA in 1990. I now want to cash out and buy a house in Columbia or Jeff City. I have family in Jeff City, Sedalia and Montgomery City. I'm worried that Jeff City may be too much of a culture shock so I was considering Columbia. I have 2 girls in school, so the education system is my #1 priority. The test scores for schools in these 2 areas are not great according to the greatschools.net website. Can anyone help point me in the right direction... looking for a family centered city that offer great educational support. I know there's more to schools than just test scores.....so anything anyone has to offer would be very helpful. Thank you.

[sierrajude]

I hear the mosquito problem is really bad in Arkansas ( & Texas ). How's the 'skeeter situation in Missouri? Oh, and what about 'chiggers' (something like that? I think they're aka 'no see ums') Thx!

[MoMark]

JTSO is pretty much on target with Springfield. I come from California originally too, I used to live for years in the San Francisco Bay area and worked in San Francisco and Oakland until 2000 when I was transfered to Las Vegas. After five years of living there and watching what is a beautiful city become a desert version of Los Angeles (one can't blame the tens of thousands of Californians who are selling out and moving there and everywhere else for that matter. California is just no longer livable in my view), and watching the house I paid $205K for in 2000 (five bedroom, three bath, three car garage on a huge raised lot overlooking Las Vegas and the entire Strip with a 15X30 pool in its own fenced off area with palms, a large backyard lawn area, patio, and a large front yard) soar into the stratosphere price-wise, and with the area I lived, though beautiful, increasingly congested with constant construction and development with ever worsening traffic, a job I had begun to hate the politics of (bank management), and a dream that had been lurking for years prior about finding a beautiful home on acreage in the Midwest, I searched the country using many criteria...price of real estate, taxes, job opportunities, local economy, distance from major cities and military complexes/nuclear plants/nuclear military missile sites (they've been decommissioned since the early 90's in MO.), proximity to a mid-size city with good medical facilities and employment opportunities, four season weather without Minnesota frigidity or Las Vegas summer heat, etc. I kept landing on Missouri, particularly southwestern Missouri. Your son is right to prod you to sell out and move here. I sold my house in Las Vegas for a sinful amount of money just at the housing peak there in June of last year and moved here to the Springfield area. I found a 2301 sq. ft. custom built brick home on 4.3 park-like acres with the house situated in the middle with a long long driveway to the farm road, scattered mature oaks and hickory trees over the 2.5 acres of rolling lawns out front, and the back acreage is all thick forest totally fenced in. My house has all the customer features, built of real wood planks internally instead of plywood or particle board, all brick exterior, 10ft. ceilings with tray ceilings and sculpted cathedral ceilings, gourmet kitchen, cathedral ceiling breakfast room with a wall of paned windows and French Doors leading to the deck with built-in seating that spans the entire length of the house, three huge bedrooms, a master closet the size of a small bedroom walkin, three car garage, and the nicest neighbors one could imagine. I know it sounds like bragging, but I bought this house with cash from the Las Vegas sale and I paid about the same as I paid for the house in Las Vegas in 2000 and was able to take a year off to enjoy it!!! My point in telling you this is that selling that modest million dollar home in Southern California will open all the doors here...easily, with beaucoup $ left over. NO reason not to take advantage of that $500,000 capital gains exemption law while you can! The average home here sells for $130K or so. My current home here would, in California, depending on where it was located, easily appraise in the million-2 million range. That's the difference between Southwest Missouri and Southern or Northern California. Taxes are very cheap too. I pay approximately $28/month in my power bill. I am eight miles north of city limits, so I'm with an electric Cooperative where I have a meter on a pole alongside my driveway and I have to read the wattage reading and call it in on the 20th every month. It's the honor system. The only thing I don't like is having to use dial up internet here.I'm too far from the DSL and cable lines It takes me 15 minutes to drive into Springfield, which is a very nice Midwestern town. SamsClub is there where I'm a member, they have Food4Less, lots of major grocery stores, and two malls with the Battlefield Mall being the largest and it has the big department stores. Wal-Mart is everywhere of course, Home Depot, there's avant garde theater here at the Moxley where foreign and genre films are shown, there's the Vandivort Theatre where plays are The medical facilities here are first rate! Rogersville is east of Springfield about 15-18 miles I think, in Webster County, and it's kind of the place where the more well-to-do have their homes. It's a gorgeous area and growing rather quickly. If you're looking at homes here, I recommend SpringfieldMoMLS.com. It's an open MLS website. Good luck!