Being relocated to Kansas City and we don’t know anything about it! (Independence: 2013, how much)

[elkotronics]

Ya mean one can't buy an affordable house in Leawood for $400,000 or less? Huh?

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by moxiegal

Leawood would be a bit out of the $400,000.00 range wouldn't it? PV is more affordable, and more open and personable to the working family.

No. You can buy a house under $400,000 in Leawood, just like you can buy a house much more than $400,000 in Prairie Village. Just depends on location. Luckily there aren't really any bad areas of either Leawood or Prairie Village, no matter what the price range.

[TabulaRasa]

There are absolutely current Leawood listing under 400k.

[empires228]

Originally Posted by moxiegal

Leawood would be a bit out of the $400,000.00 range wouldn't it? PV is more affordable, and more open and personable to the working family.

You can definitely live in older Leawood for $400,000 if you're looking aroudn 95th or near Ward Parkway Center. The more expensive areas are in the BV district for the most part because the Shawnee Mission Schools have been rocks due to bad leadership and East can't hold on unscathed forever by having things like lobster fundraisers without the next superintendent being competent. Hopefully the district learned to not hire people from the likes of Garden City, Raytown, and Turner this time if they don't want their district being ran like those schools.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by PhillyKansascity

Piper (KCK)

You are kidding right?

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by PhillyKansascity

No... Why?

Not saying there is anything wrong with Turner. I just don't see the OP having a lot of interest in that area.

[luzianne]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Not saying there is anything wrong with Turner. I just don't see the OP having a lot of interest in that area.

Piper is not Turner. Those are two different areas.

[kcmo]

Originally Posted by luzianne

Piper is not Turner. Those are two different areas.

I know. I just typed Turner for some reason. Had KCK on the mind.

Personally, I just think any part of KCK (even the suburban parts) would be culture shock to the OP. But you never know.

[ea1420]

Originally Posted by rwiksell

That helps a bit. But it's literally 50 miles from one corner of KCMO proper to the other. Do you have any more specific information that could narrow it down further?

I agree with this. If the office is located up north, then it's better to live in the Northland. There are a tons of great areas north of the river.

If the office is located downtown then you have even more great options on both sides of the state line. And both sides of the state line have some great school districts and some less great school districts. I'd make sure that you know where the school district boundaries are located.

And if you opt for the Kansas side, there is sales tax on food, and unlike Missouri the sales tax is not discounted. I pay 9.7% in sales tax on my groceries.

[SPonteKC]

NE Johnson County, areas like Westwood and Westwood Hills or Fairway would be my top choice. Also, Prairie Village and “Old Leawood”. Good, easy acces to the city, leafy, mature, inner ring suburbs with good parks and pools and stuff. Not much like that on the Missouri side, Old Briarcliff is pretty charming, if a little isolated. It’s still very close to downtown and North Kansas City, which is increasingly interesting and fun. Beyond those, the newer suburbs are largely indistinguishable from one another. Just depends on where you want to locate in the metro.

If you’ve never lived in the Midwest, KC is pretty much midwestern, ne plus ultra. It is nothing like Seattle, in any way I can think of. It’s a little like Denver before Denver got so popular, but with a more industrial, gritty side. It’s urban core is fairly small, has pockets of activity concentrated in neighborhood nodes with pretty big stretches of inactivity and some blight between them. It has way more ghetto, both culturally and geographically than Denver and Seattle put together, and some parts of the city are legitimately unsafe, especially at night, though much less than hysterics would have you believe. The suburban hinterlands of the city are moderately conservative to outright right-wing. The urban core is probably about as liberal as the average Seattle suburban enclave. People talk openly about politics regularly and don’t mind disagreeing or having an argument about them over dinner. A family needs at least one car, probably 2 to live comfortably anywhere outside the urban core here. The weather is obviously more extreme than Seattle, if more pleasant as well, in a lot of ways. The city is beautiful, cool, and full of good food, good art, real people, and cool stuff for a small city. It’s very culturally centered on families and children. The countryside is dominated by farmland, public natural areas are comparatively scarce. If you constantly talk about how everything was better in Seattle, everyone will agree with you to your face, then we will all laugh about what a snob you are behind your back.