Madison vs Huntsville (Scottsboro, Valley, Guntersville: rental market, daycares, houses)

[seff75]

So I know this is a debate that comes up often here (at least from thesearch I did), but thought I would ask for everyone's opinion based on ourcriteria.... [/

So we currently live in Virginia now (Hampton Roads) and myhusband is in the military and I work for the federal government. We have 2children (8 year old boy, 2 year old girl and one on the way). There is a verygood possibility that we will be moving to the area next summer (my husbandwould be at Redstone). We would for sure be there for 3 years, and then myhusband will either retire there and we will remain or we will go on to anotherassignment. Our plan though is to eventually come back and live there full timeonce my husband ends his military career (we both are in theacquisition/program management field and there are a lot of job opportunities,LCOL, nice weather, etc).

We are trying to determine where we should live. School isimportant to us as by then 2 children will be school age, and my son playsselect baseball so that is important as well. Additionally, we do have a boatand have heard that Lake Guntersville is very nice (not sure of an areas closerto Madison for boating). I wouldn’t have a job right away, but anticipateworking at Redstone as well. I would need daycare for the new arrival (who beabout 6 months when we move- thought Im sure it will take a few months to gethired/settled in, etc), so I would like to have access to a high qualitydaycare/pre-school. We do have a friend who currently lives in Madison andloves it. Says the main downfall is traffic.

As for renting versus buying I would love to buy (I am sotired of renting). We currently own a home in Cali that we have on the market.If it sells, I am more interested in buying though if we leave- I am concernedabout the rental market and how quickly we could get it rented. So any thoughtson that as well would be great. We would like though at least 4 bedrooms and preferably3000 sq ft.

So, I know this is long, but any thoughts/suggestions/areas to focus on would be great.

[jasonhsv]

For boating, check out Ditto Landing. It's at the southern edge of Huntsville (and edge of Madison County), on the Tennessee River.

This would be one reason to consider SE Huntsville - you could be 5-10 minutes from the Tenn River.

[Becky2517]

Hubby & I live 1 mile from Gate 7 to Redstone, which makes it very convenient when we need anything on base...we're in a Huntsville zip code (35824), but right on the edge of Madison, easy access to 565 & everything we could possibly need...the houses they are building in our sub-division (Lake Forest) fits your size criteria - can't advice on schools/water access. :-)

[BigDJM]

My wife and I (and two kids, 17 and 15) are going through the same process (and moving from Northern Virginia). I also work for the USG, but will working at a location other than the Arsenal.

We did ALOT of research on the area and conducted our house hunting last week. Online research does not differentiate the areas very well. We looked in all parts of the area and ultimately settled on the Owens Cross Road area. A large part of this was my commute will be roughly 12 minutes (have been doing 2 hour, one way commutes for 2+ years so this was a HUGE part of the decision). We also liked the mountain view appearance of the OXR area. There were mountain views in the Madison area also, but it didn't seem as close (if that makes sense). Also the North and West areas seemed flatter and more like the strip mall roads we were used to when we lived in Orlando. Not that there is anything wrong with that, we just preferred the traffic patterns, and commercial layout in the SE part of the city. But it did seem like no matter where you were, wherever you were going was 15 minutes away. Based on my commute, the sun would be in my eyes going to and coming home from work if we chose Madison (not that the commute would have been that long mind you).

The type of house you are looking for is plentiful in Madison, SW Huntsville and OXR so finding a house will be the least of your worries (plus it is a buyers market it seemed).

We are happy with our choice and I'm sure we would have liked Madison also, but OXR worked better for what we were looking for. I loved the whole area and am very much looking forward to moving there. I can see retiring there in 5 years also.

I can't answer your question on childcare as that was not a concern for us (so sorry about that). Now if only I could find good NY pizza (though it appears I may be out of luck there). Will probably have to figure out how to make my own.

Good luck and I don't think you will have much difficulty finding a place that fits your needs.

D

[Nlambert]

Go to Valleymls.com and look up Sunrise Valley. Budget and footage fits the bill and you have a beautiful view of Monte Sano mountain from your back porch.

It's the Central Elementary/Madison County High district where one of my children go. We love it. Also there's a large rec baseball league there where I coach my oldest. As for daycare, Abundance of Love is right down the street from the neighborhood (which is where my 3 year old attends) and we love it. They do a lot of activities and the owner (Debbie) is absolutely amazing with the kids. We can't pass by there without my son wanting to stop.

You'll be literally minutes from Huntsville but won't be right in down town. A lot of people I know keep their boats at Ditto in the marina or in dry storage but you've got lots of options.

It's about a 30-40 minute drive to Goosepond in Scottsboro, which is ultimately tied to Guntersville, which is only about a 40-45 minute drive. Depending on traffic Ditto is about 20-30 minutes from the neighborhood. You've also got places like Tim's Ford up around Lynchburg, TN which isn't but about an hour to 1.25 hrs from the neighborhood.

There are lots of options to choose from. Hope I've helped!

[pyro4ik]

Originally Posted by Nlambert

Go to Valleymls.com and look up Sunrise Valley. Budget and footage fits the bill and you have a beautiful view of Monte Sano mountain from your back porch.

It's the Central Elementary/Madison County High district where one of my children go. We love it. Also there's a large rec baseball league there where I coach my oldest. As for daycare, Abundance of Love is right down the street from the neighborhood (which is where my 3 year old attends) and we love it. They do a lot of activities and the owner (Debbie) is absolutely amazing with the kids. We can't pass by there without my son wanting to stop.

You'll be literally minutes from Huntsville but won't be right in down town. A lot of people I know keep their boats at Ditto in the marina or in dry storage but you've got lots of options.

It's about a 30-40 minute drive to Goosepond in Scottsboro, which is ultimately tied to Guntersville, which is only about a 40-45 minute drive. Depending on traffic Ditto is about 20-30 minutes from the neighborhood. You've also got places like Tim's Ford up around Lynchburg, TN which isn't but about an hour to 1.25 hrs from the neighborhood.

There are lots of options to choose from. Hope I've helped!

Hey, I live in Sunrise Cove, which is on the same road as Sunrise Valley. My wife and I love it. Its really close to downtown, but it has a really rural feel and is right by the mountian.

I work on the Arsenal and my drive is ~20 mins if there is no backup at Gate 9.

[TN2HSV]

The arsenal has an on-site childcare facility that is managed by parents/employees. In addition, there are numerous child care facilities around....you just have to dig around. There are church-run daycares, independent daycares, etc. My youngest is at Primrose School of Research Park. Yes, we could be paying private school tuition for what it costs, but #1 it's right up the street from where I work in Research Park and it's pretty convenient for my husband, who works at MSFC on the arsenal. Close proximity to us during the day was important in the event of inclement weather, early closings, etc. (which we have had this year). We liked the onsite childcare center also, but since I don't work on the Arsenal, it wouldn't have been very convenient for me for drop-off & pick-up, so that was the main driver. If we both worked onsite, we likely would have chosen it rather than Primrose.

We live in Madison, and I have a child in the Madison city school system (5th grade). I think the curriculum is great and she is definitely challenged, and I've found their math & science (esp science) programs to be very demanding, which is a good thing! The only negative I can find is the size of some of the schools. It can be easy to get lost in the crowd. So if you don't like that, you might not like it. My daughter's elementary is K-6 and there's right at 1,000 students at the school. It's a gorgeous facility, state-of-the-art, but HUGE for an elementary! That's my opinion, but it might not seem that big to you depending on what you're used to.

Another plus....recently both Madison city high schools (Bob Jones & James Clemens) were listed among the nations most challenging high schools. Here's some info and link to original article is here also:
Madison City Schools - Bob Jones, James Clemens, cited among nation's most challenging high schools

[TN2HSV]

Also, here's the link to Primrose School's website.
Huntsville Preschool | Primrose School of Research Park

One of the best things about it (to me) is the food! Our 14 month old gets exposed to and eats a big variety of fruits & veggies. They offer breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and a 5:00 PM snack for those there later in the day. All the food is included in the price of tuition. (Of course infants bring their own milk/formula, baby food, etc.)

[FatTails]

If you are in the acquisition corps you should have no trouble finding a job. I am in an army acquisition field and had traveled out here TDY on a couple of occasions. I liked it out here and applied for a couple of jobs. I'm pretty awesome so I got picked up for an acquisition job very quickly. Total time between resume submission and initial offer was about 6 weeks.

[AuburnAL]

They're more or less the same community. Madison probably offers less choice of gates to the arsenal especially if the wrong one gets closed for some reason or the other, but there are less bad choices for places to live to get a good school. On the other hand since you do get to choose where to live getting a bad school will be on you. Overall I think the traffic on the roads in Madison is worse than in Huntsville at rush hour.