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There's a ton of good information here. I truly appreciate so many detailed replies. When it comes time to visit and start looking at homes and schools, I have a lot of good landmarks to use in my search.
And though DFW doesn't sounds like a good fit, unfortunately, I don't really have the option of living anywhere else. Another person on this forum (can't remember who - there have been so many replies! ) suggested Portland or Seattle. If only I had the luxury of choice. My husband's job will have him working at or near the airport daily and traveling weekly. Even a 30-min commute is significantly longer than we would like, but it sounds like he will have to drive at least that long if we want to live in an area that feels comfortable for us.
Thanks so much to everyone who gave their time and two cents to help me out!
Suggest you suck it up and focus on Colleyville or Coppell and then you can use public schools. Or, choose Las Colinas .... In Enclave, Fox Glen or Cottonwood Valley and put the kids in private schools. Rather you, than your husband, can do the longer drives to more interesting places for shopping on your on schedule. In all fairness, your life will be swallowed up in the kids' school stuff anyway so put your big girl panties on and make life easy for everyone.
Y'know...the OP knows what is appropriate for her family and the type of neighborhood they want to live in. We live in Casa Linda. Easy access to mom and pop stores, easy access to downtown museums; I can get to Oak Cliff in 20 minutes. I have had to figure out the school thing for my kids since public isn't that great in this immediate area. It's working out; they are doing well.
Now my husband has a longer commute. He was working in and around downtown until about 3 years ago. Now he offices near Las Colinas. It's a drive for him. But he would not have it any other way. When we visit friends/co-workers who live in McMansion-y suburbs, he and I just look at each with the look of "we could never ever live here". It doesn't fit our personality. That is not an open call for an attack. We know who we are and what we like; where we are comfortable to call a place home. The OP knows her family and what type of environment their family wishes to reside in. Her husband might have to add 15 more minutes to his commute....maybe he is willing to make that sacrifice to live where he and his family will be most able to enjoy their lives in Dallas.
I live in what could be qualified as a McMansion (only 4K + square feet, so small McMansion). With a Toyota and Ford in my garage, and the 3rd garage used for storage. I shop at Kroger, Target, and go to Stonebriar Mall with my girls. Could I have purchased a smaller, older house in a more "mom and pop" part of town? Sure, but then I wouldn't have my home office (which I work out of full time), my girls wouldn't have their own bedrooms and baths and decent sized closets, my wife wouldn't have her own office to retreat into for doing her artwork or computer work to relax to, and I wouldn't have a Media room to watch my movies in after a 12 hour day of work, and playing with my girls. How many house parties have I held in my 3 years of living here, to show off my high ceilings? One, if you count a family reunion of some cousins coming over to visit when my parents were in town. Do I feel bad about all of this? Not in the slightest.
Not to sound harsh, but why don't you have the luxury of choice
Not to speak for the OP, but as someone coming from a similar POV (essentially “bribed to be here”, although sadly lower on the budget scale ), their answer is probably because their husband has been transferred here by his employer and this is part of his move up the ladder. If they can afford a $1.5M home and he's frequently travelling then I'm assuming his job is a bit above entry-level and he's being "groomed" for a possible very high level position within his company.
This is all just a guess, but if that's the case then it's very difficult to jump ship and find something similar elsewhere, not just from a compensation standpoint but in terms of career opportunity. Again, the OP can correct me if I'm wrong. They likely also have had discussions on impact this has on the family as a whole and the kids (you don't just uproot 3 kids and move them somewhere else on a whim). The OP may be leery of Dallas, and heck her husband may be as well, but they may have decided together that the opportunity professionally was worth it.
(It's also possible that if this is a move up then husband may be relo'd again in a few years to move up again, possibly with a choice of a different location and at that time they could consider a Portland or Seattle or San Francisco. Who knows? This is the sort of inside baseball that is their business as a couple, not that of a bunch of us random posters on the intermawebz).
I totally get that sure, they don't HAVE to do this, hell if they can afford a $1.5M house then they might arguably be able to retire to a small place in some low COL area right now if they really really wanted to.
[As an aside, on the school thing, I'm not seeing the "better". Chicagoland schools (for example) score consistently better on the national standardized tests than DFW schools. Yes, most Chicago public schools stink - but so does DISD. Yes, DISD magnets rock, but so do CPS magnets, even more so if you look at ACTs (they don't take as many AP tests so Newsweek or whoever ranks them lower, but Whitney Young and Northside Prep blow away TAG and SEM on SAT/ACT results). Upscale Chicago burbs outscore the upscale DFW burbs pretty much across the board (I could post district by district, for now I'll note that Highland Park's 26.3 or whatever ACT is below New Trier's 27.5+, Plano in DFW trails Stevenson in Chi, and there are other analogs out there). When I look at some other major urban areas, I don't see any indication that DFW area schools are on average "better", and would argue that they just might be a little worse.]
As for all the rest - if you really prefer a certain "feel" to where you live and wind up someplace that's completely the opposite, you'll be uncomfortable. Yes, it's not the end of the world or anything, they’ll adjust, but they’re already balancing tradeoffs (move and follow this opportunity vs. stay wherever the heck they are). The sad truth for them is that DFW is generally “conservative chain-store McMansiony flat new suburbia” (as are most new-build areas in any part of the US…well, not always “conservative” but all the rest, yes). It’s not easy to find older neighborhoods with “character” here in DFW because not much of DFW is old, and out by the airport almost everything is new because there was virtually nothing there until after they built the airport. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, but it works against the OP.
Yes, they might wind up living in Southlake or something. My favorite part of the country is the Pacific NW, I’m generally “liberal” politically and not materialistically “flashy” or whatever, and we wound up in Southlake because of “near the airport, good schools” (and a house on a larger lot with many mature trees, McMansiony but built WAY back in the early 1990’s ). I hate the summer heat and don’t like many things about Texas, but my job is a good one and we can travel a lot (going to Oregon shortly, in fact). In the scheme of “problems”, these are pretty minor.
If the OP wants “older with character”, then she should look at PC, PH and Lakewood. If she wants “liberal” as well, then Lakewood. Schools…well, we won’t reopen that debate, but PC or private over Lakewood publics. “Near the airport with good schools”, then Colleyville/Southlake/Grapevine (possibly Flower Mound but that struck me as even more “new McMansiony” than the other 3 when we were looking earlier this year). Grapevine has a bit of an old school “main street” downtown and parts of it might kinda-sorta work for the OP. Or they could do a custom build in Colleyville or SL (a $1.5M budget can go a long way there), but would still have a lot of McMansions and chain stores nearby.
The OP is not saying that her world will end or anything, but rather that she’d prefer a certain type of place and is hoping (since she has little knowledge of the area and is just starting to research it) that DFW might offer some of that. Unfortunately, the Metroplex is a bad fit for what she prefers. So she and her husband will have to make tradeoffs. It’s either that or completely scramble her husband’s professional career, which apparently has been going pretty darn well so far. She’s likely just disappointed to hear about the environment she’s moving to, and again, I TOTALLY get that.
Last edited by synchronicity; 08-02-2013 at 09:59 AM..
I live in what could be qualified as a McMansion (only 4K + square feet, so small McMansion). With a Toyota and Ford in my garage, and the 3rd garage used for storage. I shop at Kroger, Target, and go to Stonebriar Mall with my girls. Could I have purchased a smaller, older house in a more "mom and pop" part of town? Sure, but then I wouldn't have my home office (which I work out of full time), my girls wouldn't have their own bedrooms and baths and decent sized closets, my wife wouldn't have her own office to retreat into for doing her artwork or computer work to relax to, and I wouldn't have a Media room to watch my movies in after a 12 hour day of work, and playing with my girls. How many house parties have I held in my 3 years of living here, to show off my high ceilings? One, if you count a family reunion of some cousins coming over to visit when my parents were in town. Do I feel bad about all of this? Not in the slightest.
We just sold our 5k+ sqft home. The house was bought and paid for so it wasn't sold due unable financial reason. We just wanted a change in venue. We're currently living in a small apartment for the time being. Anyhow, living in a larger home isn't a bed of BullBoxer31. We had to hire a small work force to keep the thing running, maids, yard guys, handymen, pool guys. It seemed like we had 1-2 different people over every day fixing things or cleaning something,...not that something broke all the time but we always needed a light bulb replaced and countless air filters changed etc etc. My wife had an office and me a shop and it seemed like we was constantly interrupted and stumbling over people. We had three garages as well, Ford truck, wife's Buick, and the hotrod. It was nice until someone decided to build behind us and put their fence right at the edge of the alley instead of counter sunk like the rest of us. So it made parking the hotrod a PITA.
Irving is about 15-20 min to the airport. it has Fox Glen and Cottonwood Valley that generally are higher end houses but not McMansion. Nice professional neighborhoods that have some homes in the OP's budget, but generally $500k-900k. There's also the Enclave...more expensive and pretty, kind of McMansiony. However, the Irving schools are unacceptable for those areas and OP would need private schools. Yes there are tons of mom 'n pop type shops and dives but they are in the "gritty" side of Irving where largely lower income neighborhoods border such shops and the food and retail is cheap but not so interesting.with a few delightful exceptions, Las Colinas and Valley Ranch are chain restaurants and typical big box stores. I own 5 properties in Irving and its location is wonderful, it's also less plastic than most burbs, but it is not Lakewood...
Oh. Geez. 1.5. Yeah. I keep forgetting how wealthy everybody here is. Sorry for the context error, folks: I'm an exemplar of the gritty y'all want to avoid.
I'd recommend looking at Kessler Park, except they've got nothing in the way of interesting shops, etc, or else if the DFW access is because your man's going to fly a lot, over into Lakewood/Uptown and bite any bullets which need biting.
Kessler Park + private schools seems to be the best option. It's 20-25 min to DFW airport and you have multiple highway routes to use. You can get a gorgeous historic home on a .5-1 acre lot for $800k-$1.1M range, leaving plenty of cash to spend $40-60k/year on private schools. Or try for DISD magnets as there are some fabulous ones!
Oh. Geez. 1.5. Yeah. I keep forgetting how wealthy everybody here is. Sorry for the context error, folks: I'm an exemplar of the gritty y'all want to avoid.
I'd recommend looking at Kessler Park, except they've got nothing in the way of interesting shops, etc, or else if the DFW access is because your man's going to fly a lot, over into Lakewood/Uptown and bite any bullets which need biting.
I am a big fan of Irving, own 2 properties in zip 75061 and 2 properties in zip 75060. Often recommend Irving when the situation fits.
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) suggested Portland or Seattle. If only I had the luxury of choice. My husband's job will have him working at or near the airport daily and traveling weekly. Even a 30-min commute is significantly longer than we would like, but it sounds like he will have to drive at least that long if we want to live in an area that feels comfortable for us. 
), their answer is probably because their husband has been transferred here by his employer and this is part of his move up the ladder. If they can afford a $1.5M home and he's frequently travelling then I'm assuming his job is a bit above entry-level 
