Moving to St Louis Area (St. Louis, University City: real estate, rent, houses)

[ceeb4]

We are moving to the St Louis area due to a job relocation. We would like to purchase or rent an OLD home, preferably craftsman style & we need a good Catholic elementary school relatively close. I have seen older homes on line but they appear to be mostly downtown. That isn't totally out but was wondering if there was a burb that had a historical district or similar with old restored homes. We are moving from South Carolina. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[TGS]

The St. Louis metro area is covered in neighborhoods with historic homes and Catholic schools. What is your price range? What size home do you need?

The nicest and most expensive areas for historic homes would be the St. Louis Hills neighborhood in the city proper, and the suburbs of Kirkwood, Webster Groves, and University City.

The city will probably be the most cost-effective for you. Many people won't buy in the city because the public schools are not great. Therefore, the houses tend to be a little less expensive. However, the Catholic schools are very strong in the city, and in the good neighborhoods there are plenty of families and kids that attend the private schools.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

There are a lot of beautiful old homes in St. Louis, and not all are downtown. There are plenty of options.

STLtoday - Homes might be a good place to search.

I'm not sure about schools, though. There are a range of public, charter, private, magnet schools throughout the city. The Catholic schools I think are generally good, but you'd need to ask someone who knows more about it.

Built St. Louis: Home will guide you through the different neighborhoods. It's interesting and pretty accurate.

How many bedrooms and bathrooms do you want? Need a garage? A yard/fence? square feet? Price? If you know all this you can search easier.

Soulard has some nice old homes, as does midtown. Lafayette Square is nice, I've heard. It has houses called "Painted Ladies".

[TGS]

My favorite search engine for houses is Coldwell Banker Gundaker -- Your site for St. Louis Real Estate

You can search by area, school district, zip code, etc. For the Craftsman homes, look in the 63109 and 63139 zip codes first. That will pull up South St. Louis. There are about five Catholic schools that serve the area. All are good.

The Built St. Louis website focuses more on the North Side of St. Louis, which is not the first choice on most people's list for safety and services.

Soulard and Lafayette Square are both great neighborhoods, and are pretty expensive. The houses are not Craftsman, though. Most of the homes are French vernacular and Second Empire. The nearest Catholic schools are St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Francis Cabrini. Both are good schools.

[ceeb4]

Price range is max 300k. Rent range would be $1500-2000. Thanks so much for all the input. This is an awesome forum!

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by STLCardsBlues1989

There are a lot of beautiful old homes in St. Louis, and not all are downtown.

I suspect when the OP says downtown they are referring to the city proper, not just downtown St. Louis.

If you are already planning on sending children to catholic school I can't imagine much reason to live in the suburbs (especially as to get what you're looking for you'd have to spend more money). Most of south city is a safe place to raise a family.

[kshe95girl]

Originally Posted by STLCardsBlues1989

There are a lot of beautiful old homes in St. Louis, and not all are downtown. There are plenty of options.

STLtoday - Homes might be a good place to search.

I'm not sure about schools, though. There are a range of public, charter, private, magnet schools throughout the city. The Catholic schools I think are generally good, but you'd need to ask someone who knows more about it.

Built St. Louis: Home will guide you through the different neighborhoods. It's interesting and pretty accurate.

Just a note for anyone else reading this, Built St. Louis: Home is not a real estate site. It is more of a narrative on the decline and rehab of the area, but very cool and informative, one of my favorites.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Originally Posted by kshe95girl

Just a note for anyone else reading this, Built St. Louis: Home is not a real estate site. It is more of a narrative on the decline and rehab of the area, but very cool and informative, one of my favorites.

My point in adding it was that there are still old homes in St. Louis, and so maybe she could get an idea what some of the neighborhoods look like.

[kshe95girl]

Originally Posted by STLCardsBlues1989

My point in adding it was that there are still old homes in St. Louis, and so maybe she could get an idea what some of the neighborhoods look like.

Just wanted to point out that it wasnt real estate..... boy, some of the pix of North StL are sooooooo sad, dont you think?
I hate the fact that they are "harvesting" buildings now, have you looked at the site lately?

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Yeah. North St. Louis is sad. Although there's a town of about 15,000 near here that has hardly any old commercial buildings, just some old crumbling houses.