? Good Housing Area Charleston WV? (Teays Valley, Cross Lanes: hardwood floors, real estate, houses)

[wesrenee]

Will be moving to Charleston WV area and are looking to find good housing area within the city. Want to know which areas would be the best as well as in a good school district.

Have heard that the South Hills area is nice, but would like opinions on that as well as other areas.

Thank you.

[corgis]

South Hills, Fort Hill, Edgewood, Mount Alpha, Kanawha City, Historic East End, Louden Heights all are nice areas.

[NOVAmtneer82]

Depends on what you can afford, it is rather expensive (by WV standards) to buy a home in South Hills but the school district is excellent. The Edgewood area of the West Side and the historic East End are beautiful neighborhoods filled with turn of the century homes however they are surrounded by some iffy parts of town. If you chose to live in either of those two, I would highly recommend private school.

You really cannot go wrong with Kanawha City, the homes for the most part were built in the 1940s and 50s however many people are buying them up and doing extensive renovations. The main retail corridor through KC is MacCorkle Ave. and it has nearly every convenience one could possibly need. There are lots of young families in Kanawha City and the schools are good EXCEPT at the high school level. I moved to the DC area after college but went to Capital when I lived in Charleston, it was bad then, its worse now, most of the kids in my aunts Kanawha City neighborhood go to George Washington HS in South Hills or they attend private school.

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask!

[David Kennedy]

This is the secret 'Real Estate' opportuntiy of the century...to buy a distressed property on a nice land parcel and renovate the structure or tear it down and build a new one.
Usually the property is devalued because of ugliness.
What it has is infrastructure: Water lines, Septic or Sewage lines, Gas and Electric and access to the property.
On a new property, these features would cost approximately $15,000 or more. This is money that can be used in the renovation or rebuilding...think about it.

[Silkdashocker]

All of these posters make good points. I moved to Charleston when i started college. In that time i've lived in Spring Hill (Chestnut Street Hill), Cross Lanes (West Gate), Dunbar (Grosscup Avenue), West Side (Matthews Avenue above Stonewall). Now i just bought a house in Saint Albans. It's just a 15 minute commute to and from work in downtown, and we still have the small town feeling of living in SA. We are living withing walking distance of the new high school, and the new community center, so it has it's perks. However neighborhood is mostly houses built in the 30's and 40's. Luckily we found a remodeled 1936 Cape Cod style house, with hardwood floors and the original crown molding. Some of the houses in our neighborhood are still beautiful, while a couple are needing a makeover. Lot's of young couples living in SA if you can't afford to live in Teays Valley (where alot of upscale homes are now being built.