Safe area near the airport? (St. Louis, St. Charles: apartments, lease, condos)

[stlbased]

My husband and I are planning to move within the next year to St. Louis. He is currently working in STL and commuting back and forth from Florida. We are hoping to find a safe area and either purchase or rent a condo or small home with at least a single garage. This seems to be somewhat hard to find without paying a high rent/mortgage. Also, I thought North County was fairly safe but there seems to be conflicting opinions amongst posts. We would like to be within 20-30 minutes of the airport. Is there an area that pilot families tend to live? We wouldn't want to spend more than 1100 or so on rent or 140,000 if we buy a house, townhouse, or condo.

[WestCoDude]

Much of Hazelwood and Maryland Heights would be a good bet. Full of families. Your best bet might be to find an apartment or townhome in West County or Hazelwood or something and then try to buy after a year or so. I'm not sure what you could find in a nice area for under 150K. I'm sure there's something out there....but it would take some digging.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

The North side of St. Louis and St. Louis county has a bad reputation. But I would think that there would be good places to live there (just my opinion).

For that distance (just according to Google Maps), the Tower Grove area and South City might also be doable. But the city schools are a problem, so a private school or magnet/charter school would be preferable, if it's possible. I'm assuming you mean Lambert Airport (since you mentioned North County).

Clayton is nice, but usually more pricey. Realtor.com has 3 1BR condos for $140k or less.
University city is a nice area as well. University City produced 32 home results, but most are more than 1 BR.

It may be wisest to rent first, to get a feel for the area.

Realtor.com has some nice 2 BR for under $1000/month in the University City area. Clayton has a listing there. I think Ladue has some good schools, but they might be more pricey as well. Webster Groves, Brentwood, and Maplewood can be good options, too.

Maryland Heights, Creve Coeur, Florissant, and Hazelwood have some good areas as well. St. Charles and St. Peters are okay, too. Downtown is on the rise, too.

[stlbased]

Do you know of any decent apartments or condos in the Maryland Heights/Creve Coeur area or even St. Charles/Peters that have garages? I'm not too concerned with the schools since we don't have kids but I do want to feel safe when my husband is out of town. By the way, yes, Lambert is where he'll be flying in and out. I'll be visiting again this summer and want to have some good ideas of where to look to use my time wisely!

[aragx6]

look at Craiglist. For 1100 you may well be able to get a SFH for rent in St Charles or st. Peters.

[stlbased]

I spend a lot of time on craigslist.....so confusing (like everything else) when you don't know the areas very well...but i'll keep looking!

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Try Realtor.com as well. They have listings for buying and renting. But if it's a suburb, you have to type it in, since it's a city. If you were looking at St. Charles, you'd type in St. Charles and select Missouri as the state, same for University City, Clayton, Florissant, any place that is a suburb.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by stlbased

I spend a lot of time on craigslist.....so confusing (like everything else) when you don't know the areas very well...but i'll keep looking!

I hear that! Hopefully I can help a bit. Here's a few that should work for you well:

Ranch home available near page ext.. lease to own (broken link)

Modern condo with Basement and Garage (broken link)

Townhouse For Rent (broken link) (note if you want to find this on a map, the cross street is Harvester, not Harvestor)

827 Water Street - St. Charles, MO 63301 (broken link)

827 Water Street - St. Charles, MO 63301 (broken link) (the kitchen isn't as modern, but the location is great, walking distance to all the restaurants and shops of Historic downtown St. Charles)

Hope that helps at least a bit!

[bronte16]

Here's one more suggestion -- Ferguson, just south of Florissant. My husband and I just sold our house there but only because we wanted to move downtown. We LOVED living in Ferguson -- we lived in the historical area and the houses in our block were just gorgeous to look at (lots and lots of trees!). The North Hanley Metrolink station wasn't too far away and that gets you a stop or two from the airport! I know some folks aren't always too keen on North County but we never had any problems -- loved our home, loved our neighbors. Our house sold for $110,000 which might be about average for the area (but, of course, this really depends on the house!).

Anyway, just thought I would throw another idea out there!

[stlbased]

Thanks for the feedback! I've never heard of Ferguson. So if you were alone at night would you have felt comfortable in Ferguson?

We wouldn't mind spending more on whatever we buy but we only plan on staying in St. Louis for 3 or 4 years and we'll still own our house in Florida so we don't want to get into a big mortgage payment.