Help: Young family looking to move to St. Louis (Kansas City: apartment complex, renters) - Missouri (MO) - City-Data Forum

Symone619 · 10-10-2010, 01:40 PM

Hey guys! I'm considering moving to ST. Louis soon and I need help finding a nice neighborhood for my family. My husband and I are a young couple. We have two young children and a teenaged niece ages ranging from 4 to 15. We are looking for a neighborhood that is safe, affordable, diverse, family oriented, and progressive. Since we have school aged children we prefer an area with a good school district as well. We're are renters and our budget is in the $750-850 range. We are also considering Kansas City (Kansas & Missouri) so you may see the same post in those forums as well. Thank you all!

billiken · 10-10-2010, 02:45 PM

Can you give us an idea of what kind of living situation you're looking for? If you're thinking a 4 bedroom house in a place with all those characteristics, you won't find it in your price range. If you take diverse and progressive off the list, you could likely find something.

Symone619 · 10-10-2010, 03:57 PM

I'm looking to rent 2-3 bedrooms. Homes or complexes. I might not get everything on my list, but a safe neighborhood with a good school district is most important. We're an African-American family relocating from Southern Cali. We're use to paying $1050 or so a month, but we moved sort of suddenly now only one of us if employed. So our price range got cut short. Any nice neighborhoods that fit that criteria? LOL. Thanks for responding.

flynavyj · 10-10-2010, 04:21 PM

I'm fairly familiar with both Kansas City and St. Louis (i grew up in St. Louis and have lived here for appx 26 yrs) and did four years of college close to Kansas City, and lived in Olathe, KS for one year.

I've only rented in St. Louis once though, and we were in an apartment. Craigslist would be able to help you with your search, once you've got an idea of the neighborhoods (aka cities/municipalities) you're looking at. The vast majority of St. Louis is safe, so that shouldn't be a problem. Good public schools for your kiddos is going to essentially make living in the city out of the question as the St. Louis public school system is in more or less shambles (there are good private schools, but that obviously increases your budget needs). You'll find good rated public schools all throughout the county, the best school districts would probably be Ladue, Parkway, Rockwood, Francis Howell. Other districts would be suitable (i wouldn't have qualms about sending my children to) Pattonville, Hazelwood (not East) Clayton.

St. Louis is somewhat segregated (boo) with numerous aftrican americans living in North County (some folks get angry about hearing that, but it's typically nice middle class families, not to mention tons of business professionals who were attracted to new construction on old farmland along with lower housing prices). South County (around the rockwood school district) is typically caucasian, much of it is working class families also, along with business professionals, just not very "diverse".

If you're only expecting a 2-3BR home (single family i take it?) you might find yourself in the northwestern counties of St. Louis. Check out some fo the unincorporated areas around Creve Coeur/Maryland Heights, might want to check into Bridgeton, and some of the parts of St. Ann that are in the Pattonville school district. Some of the areas between Creve Coeur and Maryland Heights would put you into Parkway school district and in that area you can typically find a nice 3br home (to buy) in the sub 200k range when the time is right...but it'd keep you from having to move the kids from district to district when the time comes. Good luck.

OH yeh, and in Kansas City. The public school district inside the city limits isn't all that good. If you leave the city limits (which are much larger than St. Louis) you'll have better education options. They recently shut down large numbers of the schools over there, which hopefully will help improve the numbers by having less "trouble teachers" and including better students in with some of the weaker ones...In Olathe the school district was seen as being pretty good. My wife and I had bought our 3 BR 2.5 Ba duplex out there for 145k about 3 years ago now...They're still selling those duplexes for the appx the same price, unfortuantly had i rented it, it would have been appx 1200/mo which would put you over budget. Older homes in the area would go for something similar, you could also dig into Overland Park, or Lenexa which should get you good schools too...all of which are on the Kansas side of the border. Staying out of the city, you might do ok in Lee's Summit, MO but i'm not quite sure how their school district is, it'd be the equivillant of living in St. Peters, MO ish.....

stlcitygirl · 10-10-2010, 05:46 PM

Check out Webster Groves, Kirkwood and Brentwood. All safe, good schools and are more progressive than the further out suburbs. I live in South City, which is extremely diverse and progressive, but you would have to put your children in private school.

orangefuscia · 10-10-2010, 06:40 PM

I'd also like to add we in St. Louis want you and your family here, so please take that into consideration as well

kcmo · 10-10-2010, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flynavyj

OH yeh, and in Kansas City. The public school district inside the city limits isn't all that good. If you leave the city limits (which are much larger than St. Louis) you'll have better education options. They recently shut down large numbers of the schools over there, which hopefully will help improve the numbers by having less "trouble teachers" and including better students in with some of the weaker ones...In Olathe the school district was seen as being pretty good. My wife and I had bought our 3 BR 2.5 Ba duplex out there for 145k about 3 years ago now...They're still selling those duplexes for the appx the same price, unfortuantly had i rented it, it would have been appx 1200/mo which would put you over budget. Older homes in the area would go for something similar, you could also dig into Overland Park, or Lenexa which should get you good schools too...all of which are on the Kansas side of the border. Staying out of the city, you might do ok in Lee's Summit, MO but i'm not quite sure how their school district is, it'd be the equivillant of living in St. Peters, MO ish.....

All the schools in the city of KCMO are not bad. I think the KCMO School district needs to change its name from Kansas City to something else because that district's reputation really hurts the other districts that also serve KCMO unless people do enough research to figure out what is actually correct.

KCMO is served by like 14 school districts. Some of them are some of the best in the metro and state. Sure, stay away from the KCMOSD. It's the small inner city district. But you can live in the city limits and attend the Park Hill, North KC, Liberty, Grandview Raytown, Lee's Summit among others. The districts in the suburban "northland" are all great districts overall, but some individual schools may be better than others. Other than that, you have other great districts in the MO and KS suburbs.

aragx6 · 10-11-2010, 10:13 AM

I think you should be able to find a little house or nicer apartment complex in Webster Groves, Kirkwood or nearby areas like Rock Hill in your budget no problem. 3 bedrooms will be tougher, but they are out there!

All of these areas have great schools, a nice community feel and are convenient to the entire metro area.

Here's a few examples from Craigslist:

2 Bed 2 Bath House with Large Yard, Washer/dryer, Dishwasher, Refrig. (http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/1991789211.html - broken link)
2 bedroom in Rock Hill (http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/1979658773.html - broken link)
2 Bdrm close to Webster University (http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/1969936949.html - broken link)
LARGE bedrooms,gorgeous view, and balcony!FREE OCT.& $1000 rent credit (http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/1999998070.html - broken link)
2 bedroom, 1 bath near park (http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/1987754868.html - broken link)

Best of luck and feel free to ask any more questions if you've got them.

For what it's worth, I am from St. Louis but currently living in Kansas City (my significant other is from Kansas City originally). When it comes to where we want to raise our future kids, it's St. Louis, no question. Great prices, plenty of wonderful, walkable neighborhoods with good schools (far more than KC), and more free and almost-free family activities than you could ever imagine.

flynavyj · 10-11-2010, 07:20 PM

sorry about that KCMO, i didn't hvae a whole lot of experience with the KCMO school system. My wife did do some student teaching at Liberty HS, along with Rockhurst HS. I guess after she moved out of the city (54th and Harrison) we spent most of our time on the Kansas side, so most of the individual school districts i remember involved being on the other side of the border...

kcmo · 10-13-2010, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flynavyj

sorry about that KCMO, i didn't hvae a whole lot of experience with the KCMO school system. My wife did do some student teaching at Liberty HS, along with Rockhurst HS. I guess after she moved out of the city (54th and Harrison) we spent most of our time on the Kansas side, so most of the individual school districts i remember involved being on the other side of the border...

No problem. It's a pretty typical issue when people more familiar with the KS side give advise on this topic. The KS side has great public schools, but so does the MO side including much of the city limits of KCMO. It's confusing, but apparently people are figuring it out as the portions of KCMO with good schools are the fastest growing parts of the metro now.