Indian origin family thinking of moving to Dallas from Chicagoland - have many questions! (Fort Worth: house prices, neighborhoods)

[asliarun]

Kind people of DFW, perhaps my questions will be quite a cliche. Unfortunately, I find myself in the same kind of situations as everyone else.



We're a family of 4 with 2 kids in middle and elementary school, and both parents are permanently working from home. And we live in Chicagoland Northshore - which has very good schools and is very safe but is not very diverse. And the winters are depressing here. And we don't have family here.



We do have family in Frisco and that and the harsh Chicago weather and a desire to live in an community with diversity and more people of Indian origin is causing us to seriously think of moving to the DFW area, preferably near the Frisco area or in Frisco itself.


Would really appreciate any inputs in terms of which neighborhoods we can look at. Our main criteria are safety in neighborhood, school districts with good support for accelerated learners at the middle and high school level, good percentage of Indian origin people in the neighborhood, and somewhat reasonable house prices - not million dollar houses everywhere.


What would be some good neighborhoods and school districts to consider?

[WorldKlas]

Coppell school district has a very high concentration of Asian Indian families.

[TeamLynn]

What price range do you want to be in? That can make all the difference.
I would think, but I don't know, that Chicago would be as diverse as anywhere.
I guess that depends on your definitions of diversity.
Most of the better school districts here like Plano or Frisco or Coppell probably have kids that speak anywhere from 50-80 different languages at home. So to me if you have basically at least one kid from that many different countries that is pretty diverse. Now there might just be one kid from Ukraine, and one from Georgia and one from Maldives, and one from South Africa, and one from Malawi, so if diverse means you want 100 or 1000 from your country or that speak your language....not sure all that fits the bill.
There also seems to be a divide from what I hear between 1st gen vs 2nd/3rd generation people...so just because people look like you or have the same last name, doesn't always mean they want to interact with you or be your friend. I just hear that from different people because I work with people from all over the world. I haven't necessarily seen it or probably wouldn't even know what to look for....but might be something for you to consider.

[Leonard123]

How big a house do you need? What is your budget?

The problem with Frisco is that the people from India primarily only gravitate to new construction housing, and the price gap between newer and older neighborhoods is astronomical and growing exponentially. So they will be in the million dollar neighborhoods. The city has a disproportionate share of million dollar homes and is well known for its ostentatious neighborhoods.

Many families from India are now moving to Celina where new construction is more abundant and marginally more affordable. I can't speak to the schools because I don't know anyone with kids there, but I assume they are strong to be attracting so many families looking for the same thing.

[ThomasCrown]

Houses that were formerly $500-600k 8-10 years ago are all $1mil now... and that's after the last 6 month pullback in pricing. You can still find homes in that price range in Frisco however, but they will probably be 10+ years old. Since most housing stock in Chicago area is much older than that, it probably isn't an issue for you.


You didn't mention your budget, but in that price range, you'll find 3/2 homes at 2k sq ft up to 4/3 homes with 3k sq ft.

[texstout]

Many Frisco neighborhoods have become known as having majority Indian populations - although I've also heard that many are mostly 1st Gen. (I have Indian friends who purposively did not want that - so not sure if that is important to you). Indian families have stereotypically been drawn to new build homes - which have vastly increased in price over the last couple of years.

But honestly, there will be significant number of Indian families at most North Dallas suburbs which all are very safe and all have good school systems. You'll want to narrow in on your price point.

I'm not a fan of Frisco in particular (very cookie cutter), but I do like the sound on their school system which focuses on smaller high schools compared to the huge ones in other nearby towns.

[asliarun]

All, many thanks for the replies and sorry for the late response. I could only catch up over the weekend. My budget is about $600k (could stretch it to $650k or possibly $700), and I am looking for a 4 bed (ideally plus a study), and 3 bath. I would love a big house - that's one of the main reasons to consider Dallas - especially since houses here tend to be in the 2000 sq ft range at my price point, and i would love to have extra room for the grandparents and kids.



A newer home would be awesome but I stay in an area in Chicagoland where all the houses are from the 1960s including mine so my definition of "newer" is a house that is not a fixer upper. A house built after 2000 is new to me


I would love to live in a neighborhood that has many Indians as i miss that right now. It is much harder to make friends, especially as they tend to be the parents of the friends of our kids.

[ILTXwhatnext]

Here's the Gandhi memorial in Irving/Las Colinas.

https://mgmnt.org/index.html

There are lots of Indians in that area, especially around I-635.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-neighborhoods

The most diverse neighborhood in America is the ZIP code 75038. Located just east of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, this zip code includes the neighborhoods of Broadmoor Hills and Song in Irving, Texas. That zip code is 26 percent Asian, 25 percent black, 23 percent Hispanic, and 23 percent white. The next-most diverse neighborhoods are Queens Village (11428) in the borough of Queens, New York, and San Francisco’s Treasure Island (94130).

[dallas_cowboy]

Originally Posted by asliarun

Kind people of DFW, perhaps my questions will be quite a cliche. Unfortunately, I find myself in the same kind of situations as everyone else.



We're a family of 4 with 2 kids in middle and elementary school, and both parents are permanently working from home. And we live in Chicagoland Northshore - which has very good schools and is very safe but is not very diverse. And the winters are depressing here. And we don't have family here.



We do have family in Frisco and that and the harsh Chicago weather and a desire to live in an community with diversity and more people of Indian origin is causing us to seriously think of moving to the DFW area, preferably near the Frisco area or in Frisco itself.


Would really appreciate any inputs in terms of which neighborhoods we can look at. Our main criteria are safety in neighborhood, school districts with good support for accelerated learners at the middle and high school level, good percentage of Indian origin people in the neighborhood, and somewhat reasonable house prices - not million dollar houses everywhere.


What would be some good neighborhoods and school districts to consider?

Dallas is not longer cheap. I know tons of family who moved from Chicago in the past decade. Home prices in Frisco are still high and will continue to remain high due to various reasons. What's your expectation in terms of $, sq ft, built year, direction (yes, lot of indian family believe in vastu hence asking).

[NoClueWho]

Originally Posted by asliarun

A newer home would be awesome but I stay in an area in Chicagoland where all the houses are from the 1960s including mine so my definition of "newer" is a house that is not a fixer upper. A house built after 2000 is new to me

Well, at least you are coming with realistic expectations. Oddly, most don't.