Blue Ash and neighboring areas perspective

[cgs2000]

I'm in Blue Ash, on an older street near the Rec Center and close to the Town Center, and see some tear-down activity starting. There is no question about the quality of the Sycamore school system.

[love_sycamore]

Hi there. I currently live in Montgomery and my three children attend schools within the Sycamore school district. I am extremely pleased with the school system. I have children attending the high school, junior high and Maple Dale Elementary. Interestingly, Maple Dale was formerly the most dated elementary school in the system but was rebuilt in the last two years. Although it probably has the lowest median income of the four elementary schools, its test scores rivaled both Blue Ash and Montgomery Elementary, the two elementary schools with the highest median incomes. I also have friends who had children attend Montgomery and Symmes Elementary and all were pleased with the education. Montgomery Elementary is probably the one with the most 'prestige', though that might slowly be changing as the two most expensive neighborhoods in Montgomery (The Reserves and Vintage Club) now feed into Symmes Elementary.

Now, onto the difference between Blue Ash and Montgomery and Symmes...

Blue Ash has OUTSTANDING city services. The Blue Ash rec center is amazing, the newly built Summit Park at the former Blue Ash airport looks fantastic and the city allows you to blow your leaves to the street to be sucked up by city services. After paying a lawn service $400/season to blow and dump leaves, that benefit is oh-so-appealing. The downside: the downtown area is tired and a bit strip-mally. I also don't particularly love the housing stock in Blue Ash. It's all pretty dated and not as treed as Montgomery (which is maybe why they let you blow your leaves to the street?) My husband often asks why we didn't seriously consider anything in Blue Ash based on all the amenities we are missing in Montgomery. My response is that we looked in Blue Ash but did not like the neighborhoods or style of homes.

Downtown Montgomery is just so lovely compared to Blue Ash. It is quaint and has some higher end restaurants and boutiques. There is a nice little farmers market Spring-October. However, they do not have the amazing rec center. They have parks in abundance, though none nearly as large as Summit Park. Montgomery has smaller neighborhood parks with soccer fields, baseball fields, tennis courts and playgrounds. Montgomery does have a very reasonable city pool (now heated!) which costs approx $300 for the summer for the family. The pool is not as grand as the one at the Blue Ash Rec Center though. If I could do it over again, I would probably have looked in Swaim Park which is in walking distance to downtown Montgomery, simply because I love the downtown area so much. Home prices here are $400K - $650K.

Symmes, finally, has no real identity to me. If you look at its borders, it looks like it has been gerrymandered to hell with parts of it bordering Indian Hill, Loveland and Princeton schools. Many of the houses are on the borders of the Sycamore schools district and are a much longer commute to the individual schools. Furtheremore, DH works downtown and I can't think of one house within Symmes which wouldn't add an addl 10-15 minutes to his commute time.

I could write a book about the area and know the real estate quite well. I have been looking at "new listings" every two days for the last 2 years as we have considered buying a house. Feel free to DM me with any questions. Long story short, inventory is VERY VERY scarce. I'd be happy to recommend some neighborhoods if you DM me with some likes/dislikes and price ranges. Anything reasonably priced seems to sell within 3 weeks, if not sooner.

[love_sycamore]

I just saw your previous message about specific developments. Blue Ash/Montgomery/Symmes do not have the sort of developments you may be thinking about. When I think of 'developments', many of the subdivisions in Mason come to mind. No gated communities. Very few neighborhoods have pools belonging exclusively to that neighborhood. Many neighborhoods connect to other neighborhoods and have at least 2-3 streets going in and out. PM me if you want further details. Best place to search for homes is on the sibcy cline website where you can search by school district. If you want to pick a few you like and DM me, I can get a gauge of your preferences and make some recommendations.