Moving need help please (Philadelphia, Allentown: real estate, for rent, credit)

[phillysprincesss]

I am a single mother of 3 children, a 7 year old girl and 5 year old twin boys. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, now I desperately want to leave. I need to get my children out of here. I do not want them to think the way people live around here is normal. I have been thinking about moving to the Lancaster area for a while now. Yesterday my landlord called me and told me I have 60 days to leave bacause he found a way to make more money off of the property. More then likely he is turning the house into a halfway house, as that is the only way to make money from properties where I live. I am trying to see this as a blessing because now I have the chance to get out of here. If anybody can help me and give me some information I would greatly apprecaite it. Here is what I am looking for. I would love to be in a small town, not too rural, I would like neighbors around me. I need someplace kid friendly with activities close by for the kids. My daughter is an Irish dancer and my boys want to start playing sports. I would like somewhere that has town activities for the children around the holidays. Halloween where I live is depressing for every 15 doors my kids knock on they might get candy from one person. This breaks my heart. I do not mind if people are liberal or conversative, as long as other people's views are not pushed upon me. I myself am liberal, but I do not have any problem with what anybody else is. I need a place that does not have a problem with single parents. I need a good school district, a catholic school would work also, but I prefer a decent public school to save money. Ideally I would like to rent for a year to see if I can actually make it out of the city. The place I have in my head is like a small town you see on t.v. where everyone is friendly and gets along and helps each other out. Maybe like the town on Gilmore Girls as an example. I know I am dreaming and this place probable does not exist but hey a girl can dream can't she? Like I said I would like to be in the Lancaster area just because I do not want to be more then 2 hours from my family in Philly. Please help me. I would be moving after the kids finish school in June or early July.

[mattjd]

Can you give me some more info? I believe you want to rent, correct? What is your budget? You would need a 3BR apt or house, so that isn't going to be cheap. Where will you be working, or does your commute matter at all? Also, you posted this in the Lehigh Valley forum. I'm semi-familiar with Lancaster, but if you're ok with the LV I would be able to give you much more specific infomation as far as towns, prices for housing, the best schools, etc.

[toobusytoday]

My town has what you are looking for, but so do many of the small towns in this area and perhaps in Lancaster County too. As Matt pointed out, you posted in the Lehigh Valley forum and Lancaster is not considered the Lehigh Valley. I'd be happy to move your post to the general forum if you would like me to.

I live near Coopersburg, which is an hour North of Philadelphia, and frankly, an easier drive then one to Lancaster. I've lived in three of the counties surrounding Philadelphia and getting to Lancaster always involves quite a bit of traffic. Coopersburg is a wonderful small towns with Halloween parades, small schools and yes, the grocery stores where everybody knows your name. We're growing fast enough that new people are not unusual and I've found it very easy to make friends.

What kind of job you want and how much you can afford will be your limiting factors. Hope we can help you!

[phillysprincesss]

I did not realize I posted in the wrong place. But if I could be closer to Philly that would be even better. I am currently on worker's compensation due to a back injury and will be starting online courses to get my degree in something in the computer field, therefore a commute to work does not matter to me at all at this point. Right now I pay $800 a month for a 3 bedroom house so I would like to pay no more then that, less would be better. LoL I only said Lancaster because I thought I would have to go at least that far to find a decent place to live. I had no idea there was anywhere closer besides the suburbs surrounding Philly and I do not want to live in the suburbs. I just want a nice small town away from city life. My kids think it is normal to go to sleep to the sound of the police helicopter and I do not want them growing up thinking this is normal living. They cannot even play outside because of the problems where we live. I grew up on the street I live on and it has changed for the worse over the last 10 or so years so now it's time to go. Thank you for any help you can give me. Like I said I am open to move anywhere away from the city that is safe.

[ciz2676]

the best place to find info is lehigh valley apts/housing for rent classifieds - craigslist and get an idea on prices and things. if you did move up to the lehigh valley just stay away from Allentown. lancaster is west, lehigh valley is north.... if you go past there more up north you would live in the woods lol

[toobusytoday]

Phillyprincess, I'd suggest you get out a PA map and take a look at it so you can see the area's we are talking about. The Lehigh Valley consists of the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton and the small towns that encircle them. Avoid Allentown for sure and if you can afford it, pick one of the small towns. I happen to love my area, but truthfully they're all pretty nice, especially the town of Emmaus which has a variety of houses, a cool downtown and great schools.

[mattjd]

You got some good information about Emmaus being nice and avoiding Allentown, but I just don't know how realistic that is. Truthfully, Emmaus is a pretty nice area and $800 for a 3BR is kind of low. I'd say that $800 would get you a fairly nice 1BR apt, but a 3BR house in a nice neighborhood? I dunno about that. Hey, maybe you could get lucky, but my guess is that you might have to stick to a house in the city of Allentown...a not so nice house in a not so nice neighborhood and in a bad school district. I don't want to discourage you and I hope you still look around, but $800 for a 3BR house doesn't give you a whole lot of options.

[toobusytoday]

You are probably right Matt, but I would go so far as to say that if she can't find something except for Allentown then it's not worth moving. I was looking at the Craig's list post that Matt gave the link for and I noticed that there is a listing for a four bedroom cape cod in Center Valley for $895. Center Valley is my school district and there are no bad sections there. Well, except for living right on 309, but that's not dangerous - just inconvenient.

[phillysprincesss]

Thank you guys for all of your help. I really appreciate it. I guess I just assumed that the smaller the town the cheaper the rent. But you know what they say about when you assume. LoL I do have family members who invest in real estate so if I have to buy a property to save money I could look at going that route. I will look into the places you guys mentioned. Thank you again :-)

[yayamyers]

Phillysprincess....I am sort of in the same situation, except that I have a husband that is currently recieving unemployment and we are paying $925 a month in rent in NE Philadelphia. We moved here last August from VA cause my husband was getting out of the Navy after 8 1/2 years and Philadelphia is where family and friends are, so we thought that we were gonna be able to get work and have our kids in a good situation here, but we were WRONG. You are absolutely right, it seems like Philadelphia has decayed more and more in the past 10 yrs. or so. We are so ready to get out of here. We want to move somewhere like you mentioned and can probably pay up to like $1100 a month. I'm an interpreter and he is an electrician, so we think we can get some work any where we go within 1-2 hrs from Philadelphia....but our credit is crappy right now and money is a bit tight...but oh well..please people, if anyone can help me out with info too that would be great....