Relocating to TX, Southlake vs. Keller vs. other? (Irving, Lewisville: best city, for sale) - Fort Worth - Texas - City-Data Forum

kkool · 11-09-2010, 08:01 AM

Office is in Irving near DFW. Southlake very convenient and love the town center. Schools are critical. 3 kids - 1 starting HS, 1 starting MS, 1 in elementary school. Must be exemplary. Prefer newer home, built after 2003 or so. Price cannot exceed $450k. Looking for active neighborhood and have enjoyed master planned communities. Does Bear Creek Parkway get busy? Noticed home for sale that backs up to this, near Sky Ranch golf course, looks beautiful in Keller too. Wife is looking at houses tomorrow and Thursday with agent. Any info you have is much appreciated.

babs7907 · 11-09-2010, 08:08 AM

Well, Carroll ISD is far more superior than Keller ISD, as all the schools in Southlake are exemplary, however, you're going to find it very hard to find a new house built after 2003 and under $450K in Southlake!.

Keller ISD is very good too, and Keller was rated 7th best city of live in the US, and you can probably find a house that was built after 2003 and under $450K, BUT, the KISD is rated "recognized" overall.

The decision is up to you what weighs in more, price/type of house or school district.

kkool · 11-09-2010, 10:26 AM

Thanks babs7907. There is a house in Southlake built in 1996 which may suffice, but smaller than we had hoped for. Are you familiar with Bear Creek Parkway and the area near golf course that backs up to it? Busy street? There is about a $25-$30 per square foot difference in housed between Southlake and Keller. Definitely get more house in Keller. Is Trophy Club an option? Heard they have a new high school (Byron Nelson). Appreciate the info.

loves2read · 11-09-2010, 11:19 AM

Bear Creek Parkway is a major thoroughfare in Keller area--you can see that it connects the E boundary by Precinct Line/Davis and goes to the central part of Keller where it dead-ends...
it gets a LOT of traffic--
there is a buffer zone with some green space before the walls around the neighborhoods but it is noisy--traffic speed is about 40 --
go there pull in to house you are looking at and park and listen with windows down--morning, school dismissal time, and going home from work are busiest probably

PS--you can run a search for Keller, Southlake, Trophy Club, schools--
whatever and get a response--
lots of past threads with current info about those topics--

txtoal · 11-09-2010, 12:04 PM

If schools are critical, then SLC is going to be your best choice. Babs is correct, going to be hard to find a house in Southlake unless it is smaller or in an older neighborhood but if you are ok with that and it works for your family...then imo, I would pick a place for the schools as opposed to the homes.

babs7907 · 11-09-2010, 01:43 PM

Trophy Club is under the Northwest ISD, another good school district, but TC is still in it's infancy compared to Southlake or Keller. TC does have some great houses, and is probably considered the new/upcoming "Southlake", along with Westlake.

The thing you must remember is that TC, while still growing, means that in the near future, your property tax rates will go up as well as the city grows and more infrastructure is needed.

In the end, I always believe that school districts do matter, but kids are going to be just as smart as the time that parents invest in them!.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kkool

Thanks babs7907. There is a house in Southlake built in 1996 which may suffice, but smaller than we had hoped for. Are you familiar with Bear Creek Parkway and the area near golf course that backs up to it? Busy street? There is about a $25-$30 per square foot difference in housed between Southlake and Keller. Definitely get more house in Keller. Is Trophy Club an option? Heard they have a new high school (Byron Nelson). Appreciate the info.

nmnita · 11-09-2010, 02:46 PM

If you can find what you can live with and schools are your number 1 concern, I would choose Southlake, but either would probably work for you and your family. There is nothing wrong with Keller.

You may also want to consider Flower Mound which has 2 outstanding high schools and some top rated elementary choices.

Nita

loves2read · 11-09-2010, 02:51 PM

TC is still in it's infancy compared to Southlake or Keller
that shows that someone does not know the history--
Trophy Club was incorporated in the 70s--it is a designed community, yes--but the fact is that most development in Keller has come only in the past 10-15 yrs as well as Southlake--
before then most building was people buying land and building a home as individuals--not developers...
Keller and Southlake have more land than Trophy Club so they are larger and Keller and Southlake do have more history as individual ranching/farming communities than Trophy Club--because Trophy Club was unencorporated ranch land before it was bought for development
but Trophy Club has undeveloped land because (mainly) the Solana project which was supposed to create huge demand to live in Trophy Club never materialized...
Trophy Club only started to grow again because land in Keller and Southlake got too expensive

the history of Northwest ISD has been lackluster when compared to Keller, Grapevine-Colleyville, or Southlake Carroll ISD--
compare the number of National Merit Semifinalists that have come from Northwest vs the other districts in the area--
Northwest has only now started to get attention as a quality district--and most of that is because of the new high school that was built in Trophy Club--and the housing growth in the area feeding into Northwest--it is a district that has fairly high level of lower income students but most of them are Anglo no minority so the past TAKS scores have been average but they have not been the superior ratings that Southlake Carroll or even part of the other districts have

Coppell (ISD) and Flower Mound (Lewisville ISD) are closer to the work site and both have excellent schools--
and probably more housing choices in your price range than Southlake--
but you should also check out Colleyville--and Grapevine--with Grapevine-Colleyville ISD==part of Grapevine is even IN Southlake ISD--and Colleyville is nice place to live but you might have problem getting the new house in that price range--

ChristieP · 11-09-2010, 05:05 PM

I would love to recommend Grapevine, but there are very few houses here built since 2003. I can only think of a few near the lake... Grapevine is a much older community that has been near build-out for many years. There will be lots of houses in yor price range, though, and GCISD schools are very good. . DH and I have lived here for 8 years and we LOVE it!

Flower Mound to Irving will not be a fun commute thanks to the DFW Connector traffic, which will last for another 5 years.

adixyz · 11-10-2010, 05:15 AM

If you are taking 121/114/ 635 and living in Southlake, Grapevine, Colleyville or Flower Mound and going to Irving, the DFW connector project might slow you down depending on the location of construction and drive time. For the entire project, most of the work is scheduled to be done at night and on weekends and so far I heard the progress is on schedule. If you want to avoid 635, Flower Mound has more internal road options for Irving if needed. Coppell will be closest for you if you find a house of your liking. It has excellent schools as well.
I can speak of FMHS since my son goes there. If you are looking for academics, I personally rate FM HS better than Southlake & Coppell. FM HS had 34 National Merit 2011 semifinalist compared to 6 and 12 for Southlake & Coppell. All schools in FM all exemplary. If your focus is on Athletics, other schools might offer better programs. FMHS is more focused on "Academics" and have developed it as more "Academic" than "Athletic" although they have Athletics programs as well.