Looking to move to Wisconsin ... (Milwaukee, Wausau: house, neighborhood, school district)

[Northwoods Landmogul]

Shawano is a very nice area! Peaceful. I deal in real estate up that way/// not sure if I can network here yet otherwise I'd give you my contact info

[Owensmomma]

Moosemom, instead of buying something right away, why not rent for a while? That way, if the area or schools turn out not to be to your liking, or if your husband can't find steady work, you can try somewhere else.

We sold our home in 2007 and moved to WI with the intention of buying something within a year. Since then we've watched prices drop and also decided that the area we chose was not for us. We moved to another area, and found a nice rental by emailing local realtors asking if any of their sellers (who are sick of sitting on the market) would be willing to rent for a year. We found a lovely house at a reasonable rental amount.

We are now getting to know this area. I don't know if we'll stay here or not, because we just moved in Aug. and need time to get to know the place. But I can tell you this: We are SO glad we didn't buy something, because it would have been very hard to turn around a year later and sell it in this economy.

PS We don't miss property taxes either!

[Wellstone]

I'd recommend Wausau, they have pretty good schools and it's dirt cheap to live there - and also one of the safest cities in the country. It is nothing special but your kids would be treated well and they need lots of mechanics for the junky old cars they drive around there. It is a fairly progressive town, not overly so but a slight lean.

There's a large rural population near Wausau and lots of little villages within 10 or 15 miles. I think you could find what you need there.

Some of the other places you mentioned like Clintonville and Wautoma are somewhat backwards thinking and towns with elderly populations. And they are miles from any major city. Having lived in one of the two, I didn't like it. It's nice to not have to drive an hour to get to a department store. Wausau's got everything you need right there.

Others to consider would be Stevens Point, very similar to Wausau. I think you would like either place, they are about 30 miles apart.

[dreamhunter65]

Eau Claire / Chippewa falls area has the mechanic jobs and good schools in area with the specialties looking for as the autism society link sent and ADHD and such as have special classes to help them out also. I would go to the cities looking at and google schools in area and see what they have to offer and then look at local papers and job boards see about the jobs in area. If school's have the programs probably support groups also for family.

[yo vanilla]

The Appleton area has a large number of dealerships. Most are owned by Bergstrom Corporation but there's also Gustman's, Les Stumpf, Kolosso, Racette for new car dealers. Not sure how much anyone's hiring but Bergstrom's career website is http://www.carcareer.com . I've worked for both Bergstrom and Kolosso.

Janet Berry Elementary School (South-East side) deals well with special-needs children. It's a good school, my kid goes there. We live out of the Berry district but we applied to the school for various reasons (Appleton has an open-enrollment option).

Some areas have a bit of a smell to them from the paper mills. It's not that bad, actually, definitely not more intrusive than a farm would be.

[Moosemom]

We took a road trip to Clintonville / Oshkosh this past weekend and will definitely be moving to Wisconsin ~ but where will be the main question to be answered. We have an awesome realtor in Clintonville and he said he would take us to any and all homes that we wanted to go see. So I will be prowling the websites and looking at his recommendations. We will be doing more road trips to check out the houses/areas.

Owensmomma ~ We have definintely put renting on the table after this weekend, as finding an inexpensive house that doesn't need tons of money to be livable is harder than we thought. My went shopping at the local Walmart to see how different prices are and were beyond surprised to find that the prices are actually lower and the quality is much better.

Littledog ~ I mentioned your suggestion to my husband about finding a job first and than going from there. We will probably do that, but he now has a feel for what is in Wisconsin for him. When GM/Chrysler first announced possible bankruptcies we put his resume on line here in Michigan and have not received one phone call and that was 2 years ago. We were driving through Oshkosh and had to pull over and take a picture of a "Now Hiring" sign because we knew no one would believe us.

Thanks again for all the help, e-mails, and friendly constructive information. Please keep it coming, as I am stockpiling all the info and hiting all the websites you have offered up.

OOOOHHHH ~ What cracked us up is that this weekend we asked anyone and everyone we could 1 question: What do you hate about living in Wisconsin?? All but 3 people said winter and all agreed that coming from Detroit, we will have no problems with winter.

[mommoving]

How old are your children? Do you have elementary aged kids or older? I highly recommend Merton Community School district for elementary and middle school kids, and it feeds into Arrowhead high school which has wonderful special ed programs for the older kids. We used to live there with our young son who is autistic and the teachers and administration were absolutely wonderful in meeting his needs.

[yo vanilla]

Originally Posted by Moosemom

OOOOHHHH ~ What cracked us up is that this weekend we asked anyone and everyone we could 1 question: What do you hate about living in Wisconsin?? All but 3 people said winter and all agreed that coming from Detroit, we will have no problems with winter.

It might still be a bit different. I'm not sure how Detroit winters are, but we get some serious cold spells here. We can go for weeks on end and not get higher than 10F at the warmest point of the day, plus windy. So be prepared. Except for the last two exeptional years, we don't normally get a huge amount of snow.

[NowInWI]

I would definitely consider the Appleton area - it's fairly prosperous and affordable, has a close proximity to Green Bay and Oshkosh, and you could choose to live in one of Appleton's numerous metro area locations - Kimberly, Grand Chute, Little Chute, Combined Locks, etc. There will be a lot more opportunity in Appleton than there would be in a smaller community.

[Moosemom]

Originally Posted by yo vanilla

.... We can go for weeks on end and not get higher than 10F at the warmest point of the day, plus windy......

Unfortunately, we haven't missed the snow the past couple of winters. One of the suburbs of Detroit had 85 inches of snow for winter 2008. As for cold weather, we had the 20th coldest winter on record last year.

My grandparents had a residence in Houghton Lake (mid-state), so every holiday away from school I was up there ice fishing, snowmobiling, etc. Both my boys, 13 and 10, love the snow and outdoors in general.