Best Part of Town for Me (Pittsburgh, Ross Township: chapel, houses, neighborhoods)

[babyteeth4]

Looking for a nice neighborhood outside of the city with an hour or less commute to downtown Pittsburgh. We have 2 small children and need a decent school district. We prefer a larger/ older home and are not especially fond of living in a plan, but we would welcome living in an older neighborhood. We are looking for houses that cost under 200k.

I would love to hear your opinions.

[gg]

Originally Posted by babyteeth4

Looking for a nice neighborhood outside of the city with an hour or less commute to downtown Pittsburgh. We have 2 small children and need a decent school district. We prefer a larger/ older home and are not especially fond of living in a plan, but we would welcome living in an older neighborhood. We are looking for houses that cost under 200k.

I would love to hear your opinions.

There is Indiana Township which is in the Fox Chapel School District. I suspect Upper St. Clair has some good plans as well.

[I_Like_Spam]

The North Hills School District is fairly highly rated, West View was built up about a hundred years ago with some fair sized homes, I'm sure that you could find a lot of homes under $200k. Ross Township is adjacent to West View and has older areas and newer ones as well- although it was built up by the 1960s.

Its a easy commute to town from there.

[gg]

Yeah, check out North Allegheny School District as well. Plenty of newer homes up that way in plans.

[greg42]

West View does seem like a good bet. The added benefit is instead of just within an hour commute it's only about 15 minutes to downtown Pittsburgh even with traffic. (It's actually less with no traffic.)

Maybe Crafton? I think there are some spots there that could work. This is still pretty close, not quite as close as West View.

Ben Avon? I don't think most of the houses there are this cheap anymore, not sure.

Most of the areas with larger older homes in good school districts are not necessarily in that price range. But, 200k is not nothing. There will be scattered houses you might like in various different places. The older houses in some of them may not be in neighborhoods but just sort of places that were there before the rest of the areas got subdivided into plans. Sometimes there are neighborhoods of older houses in spots. It's hard to pick out specific places. Depends upon how important it is to get closer than the hour. With the cost of gas and the amount of time it can be taking (if commuting every weekday) it could be worth it to look closer.

If you want to look farther out though, you might find something in Mars or Evans City or Zelienople/Harmony in Butler County. These are more rural small towns. This is getting closer to the hour commute, but the property taxes are lower. Evans City and Zelie are in Seneca Valley schools (with Cranberry). Mars is a smaller school district of its own shared only with Adams Township.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Yeah, check out North Allegheny School District as well. Plenty of newer homes up that way in plans.

Think you misread; they don't like plans. They want large, older house, older neighborhood.

[gg]

Originally Posted by greg42

Think you misread; they don't like plans. They want large, older house, older neighborhood.

I did misread. Thanks for pointing that out.

In that case, have a look at O'Hara Township, Hampton, Mt. Lebo and the other suggestions.

[Burghgirl17]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

I did misread. Thanks for pointing that out.

In that case, have a look at O'Hara Township, Hampton, Mt. Lebo and the other suggestions.

$200K will get you a shoebox in Mt. Lebanon, not a larger home the OP is looking for.

[Bong477]

Can you define larger home? Larger and older don't really go all that well together (if you are looking for a good school district too) at the $200k price point.

The older parts of Ross and the nicer parts of Westview are where I'd start looking. Try the 15229 zip code to get started. They are in the same school district (North Hills). It isn't consider the absolute "best" in the area, but its quite good. Lived there for four years, no complaints. You can find a 3-4 bedroom with somewhere in the 1600'ish sq ft ballpark in your price range.

[robrobrob]

Not sure of the schools but Beaver has some big old homes, that are cheap and within an hour of downtown.

Are you sure you want an hour commute? An hour commute is awful for Pittsburgh.