Is this house in a decent area of Little Rock? (Benton: for sale, real estate)

[Luvvarkansas]

An Unaddressed Little Rock, AR 72210 - Home for Sale and Real Estate Listing - MLS #10328507 - Realtor.com®

[Sam I Am]

That's pretty far out Col. Glenn - but "out Col. Glenn" has grown massively in the last few years, although not quite THAT far out. Pretty rural. This particular house sits on only .62 acres. My concern would be what might be around it. We used to have a really nice house off Col. Glenn past Martindale on a cutoff street. It was great, our property was great - what you had to pass to get there, not so much. If you're working with a Realtor they should be able to tell you something.

[Luvvarkansas]

I've looked at the Google street view of Col. Glenn and see that it is pretty mixed....some nice, some just neat, some not so neat. This place looked neat in the pictures, and even though the street view didn't go down the street, the bird's-eye satellite view seemed to show it surrounded by larger homes with no trash or junk cars in the yard. There is a trailer on Col. Glenn where you turn onto Whispering Pines Rd., but it's neat and clean (although I know google street view is a few years out of date). A trailer here and there doesn't bother me, as long as it's neatly kept. I don't want to live in an area of nothing but trailers, though....too depressing to me.

I was talking to my SIL about her and my brother considering the Little Rock area to move to (they've thought of moving to NW AR), since it would be closer to home and family, but still be close to all the beauty AR has to offer. I was just wondering if nice places were available out from Little Rock. I've been to Benton and think it's nice, but it's a little pricey, it seems. They would have good jobs and have plenty of money for a "nice" place, but are sort of wanting to downsize in price, but still have something nice, with nice, clean neighbors, and just a little elbow room....not 10 acres, or anything like that, just not right up next to someone else. This house doesn't look that far from 430....keeping in mind that my brother drives to a town 30 miles away every day right now to work. My SIL probably drives 10 or 12 miles.

I saw another thread talking about "Hillcrest". Where would that be, so that I could look at homes for sale in that area? I'm thinking it must be one with nice, older homes (which is what they actually like....sort of like the "Garden District" in the city they live in now).

[Sam I Am]

Heights and Hillcrest are the older home areas...and Quapaw, which is downtown.

Here's the Google map I provided on another thread:

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q...ed=0CBwQ8gEwAA

Bearing in mind that things have shifted somewhat (what used to be called Hillcrest has expanded significantly and now includes what the old Capitol View would have been), zoom about 4 clicks in and one west. The area around Thayer/Rice/Fountain is spotty in places, but is rehabbing nicely in the first few blocks south of Markham. Going west but staying south of Markham, this area is coming along - probably 1930's and 1940's housing and very settled. There are some gems in there. This would be Valmar, Valentine, Maple, Martin, in that area. Straight north from these you start running into some money on Ridgeway and Midland, but on Alpine, Linwood, Colonial it's not quite as expensive. Back east on Markham, you will see Kavanaugh that runs NW - that's sort of the unofficial starting point going NW for Stift Station, which runs into Hillcrest and further NW turns into the Heights. Unless they have $200/sq. foot, they aren't finding anything in the Heights. Hillcrest is probably $125-175 sq. ft. (and in some areas more), and Hall High area is $90-$150 or so. Prospect Terrace is for Cliff Lee. The Heights are for the doctors and investment bankers, and Edgehill is for old, old, old money.

The "old Hillcrest" boundaries used to be roughly Markham/Kavanaugh west to about Van Buren - the area west and north of that would be Hall High. NE of the Hall High area is Prospect Terrace/Heights.

How's this? Tree, presidential, and letter streets north of Markham are Hillcrest/Heights. Hillcrest is south, Heights is north.

And I know that is as clear as mud.

I thought of one more thing - they might try looking out west Hwy 10, which is also Cantrell Rd., and going to about Roland? Also, there are some nice areas out Lawson Rd., which is just south of Col. Glenn, and also Burlingame Rd. and way west out Kanis (which is 12th St. in town - it changes to Kanis where 12th St. hits S. Rodney Parham Rd. going west.)

[Luvvarkansas]

Thanks!

[ArkansasSlim]

Luvv, knowing nothing else about this place, there are two things that would cause me concern, and they are; water from a well and septic tank. For almost 45 years before moving here, we lived with a water well and septic tank. A well can be very unpredictable both in quality and quantity of water. We had to put down three wells before "city water" finally cane to our neck of the woods. One went dry, one had so much iron in the water it turned our white clothes/linens yellow, and the third had so much acid it ate up our copper plumbing and turned the bath tubs green. If a septic tank is not properly installed, or has been installed in soil which will not percolate the water, they will be spending lots of time mopping "stuff" when the commodes overflow. And even if everything above is correct, if the tank isn't properly maintained they will have the same problem.

Not trying to be negative, just saying "been there done that".

[Luvvarkansas]

I hear you, Slim....my mom is having well problems right now at the cabin! The water has always been full of iron and sand (can't drink it, probably couldn't wash clothes with it, either). And now, since she replaced the old pump with a submersible one, there is black stuff in the water and it's running dry! She talked to a man about it and he told her to put some valve somewhere to slow down the amount of water the pump pulls out per minute...or something like that.

Anyway, I had talked to RogMar about her problems a few years back and he said the well was probably too shallow and she should have a new one drilled, that a submersible pump wouldn't solve her problems, and I told her what he said, but she did it anyway.

I've been thinking all these years that I'd like to live in a cabin in the mountains, but after seeing all her well problems (no septic problems so far), and hearing about others, now I'm not so sure! I guess I would just need to make sure I knew about all such issues before signing on the dotted line!

[ArkansasSlim]

A big 10-4 on all that Luvv , and country living can be wonderful 99.9% of the time, but when that .1% hits, everything turns to . But I sure miss my country home and I guess that's why I spend so much of my time in the boonies.

Our experience with water volume on two of our wells was that everything was great until a drought hit then they dried up or filled up with "sugar sand".

[WLR]

Nice area but no high speed internet and there are lots of trees and a big mountain ridge right behind you that makes cell service bad. I would avoid it unless you don't care about that. It's an older neighborhood, mostly white and skews senior. I would consider it safe/low crime.

Also, school zoned for lawson elem which is ok but not great.

[Luvvarkansas]

Originally Posted by WLR

Nice area but no high speed internet and there are lots of trees and a big mountain ridge right behind you that makes cell service bad. I would avoid it unless you don't care about that. It's an older neighborhood, mostly white and skews senior. I would consider it safe/low crime.

Also, school zoned for lawson elem which is ok but not great.

Hmmmm....the "no high-speed internet" would be a deal breaker for my bro. But the "mostly white (we've just got a little red man in us 'way back!) and skews senior (he's 50)" would be perfect for him!

I think, though, that the older neighborhoods with the fixed-up older houses would be more their speed, though....they've lived in the "city" all their married life, and probably wouldn't be able to get used to "country" life.

Thanks to everyone for their help!