[lovesbrightpink]

My husband and I are interested in relocating to the area of durant. We have family moving to AR and we would like to be closeish to them. We are coming from a large city in Sacramento Ca. We are in our 20s have no children yet. We have lived in CA all of our life. We would like someone where most of the things we need on a daily life is close by. We would want to be withint 30 min of the casino, in a place that has decent priced real estate and cheap rent. We really would like a safe area, with low crime.

We would be moving to work at the casino that is opening in durant.

What areas would be good for us?

TYIA

[stillkit]

I don't know about rents in Durant, but outside that town, there aren't many in Bryan County. Durant itself is a college town so expect competition for rentals to drive up prices.

As for buying a house? Property values there have gone up exponentially over the past few years, driven by the flood of Texans seeking to escape high property taxes. That's especially true west, north and south of town or, roughly, anywhere west of the US-69/75 freeway. East of the freeway, property values are still sane. For some reason, nobody wants to live on the east or southeast side of the county.

There are some communities within driving distance of the casino (which is being expanded, not newly built), but rentals are at a premium as the towns are very small. Blue, Bokchito, Bennington, Wade, Albany, Yuba, Kemp, Hendrix, Achille. Except for Bokchito, they have little or nothing in the way of stores or rental houses. Even Bokchito, with a population of less than 10,000 has only a minimum of shopping. All those towns are east of the main highway.

To the west, there isn't much either, at least within the county. Kingston, just across Lake Texoma, is another option and they even have a few rentals, but you'd have to fight the lake traffic in the summertime and that's very often dreadful. Additionally, they are widening the highway and replacing the 60 year old bridge over the lake and that process will take a few years, so it's going to be bad all the time until they're done.

As for safe? Out in the rural areas on the east side of the county, there's a huge drug manufacturing problem, mostly meth. Bryan County is a noted producer of murderers for some reason and some communities make a cottage industry of it. Kemp and Cartwright come to mind. It's not that they're full of bad people, necessarily, it's just that they don't take offense lightly and the killings are often somehow related to drugs and alcohol. I suspect that genetic damage caused by a generation of spraying Agent Orange on the cotton fields has something to do with it too, but I have no proof of that. In any case, I grew up in the southern part of the county and from among my 15 classmates, 2 or 3 have been murdered. SOMETHING is causing it.

To the north is Caddo, which isn't too bad, though it was the scene of a series of killings back in the 80's which resulted in the single, deadliest day in the history of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol when 3 officers were killed during the final shootout with two escaped convicts. They were killed too, but only after murdering about a dozen people over a 2 or 3 week period. They were homeboys.

I don't mean to frighten you away from Bryan County, but you do need to be aware that SE Oklahoma is a radically different place than California. You'll be easy game for the thieves and predators who haunt the county, so stay on your toes and don't trust anyone. Keep your lawnmowers and other portable possessions securely locked at all times or they're apt to disappear, even in broad daylight.

If you decide to stay in Durant proper, there are some neighborhoods to be avoided, but that's true of anywhere.

You might look across Red River and find a place to live in Denison, TX. It's a much larger town with plenty of available rental property and apartments. Sherman, just 10 more miles and only 25 miles from the casino, has much more. Together, those two towns have more population that all of Bryan County, OK and much larger and more active police forces. The downside is that even though you live in Texas, you'll be working in Oklahoma and they will take out state income tax.

[Goodpasture]

Not only will you pay Oklahoma income taxes, but you would be paying Texas property taxes.....a double whammy

[StillwaterTownie]

Originally Posted by stillkit

Keep your lawnmowers and other portable possessions securely locked at all times or they're apt to disappear, even in broad daylight.

Now I got a laugh out of that one. Who wants to steal something like a lawn mower since you have to work and sweat in order to use it?

[stillkit]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

Now I got a laugh out of that one. Who wants to steal something like a lawn mower since you have to work and sweat in order to use it?

They don't intend to use it: it's to be sold and/or traded for dope.

[Boxcar Overkill]

In Bryan country, stay in Durant. Otherwise, go across the Texas border to Sherman/Denision. Theres' no other towns I would consider, really. The only possible exception would be to get a lake house in Pottsboro.

Property prices in both places will be well below what you are accustomed to. You can find nice safe spots in both areas. Since you are in your 20's without kids, you will find much more to do at night in Sherman/Denison. You'll have a ~20-30 minute drive every morning to work, door-to-door.

I recommend Sherman/Denison. As an outsider, in Durant you will alternate between being bored to tears and perhaps a little shocked at the redneck-ness of it all. Sherman/Denison is a little closer to what you are accustomed to. It's worth the drive and the slightly higher cost in my opinion.

[GayleTX]

I agree.....Sherman/Denison or Lake Texoma area would be a better choice for a young couple.

[lovesbrightpink]

I think we are going to move to Durant. Im flying out on tuesday. Does anyone know about any rentals or areas I should check out? On the way from dallas am I going to pass sherman?

[stillkit]

If you drive from Dallas, yes you'll pass through Sherman and Denison.