Moving to Miami with family....advice needed!! (Kendall, Palmetto: house, transfer)

[2blan3]

AWESOME!! Thank you so much for all the time you have put into this!! Hopefully I won't need to bother you anymore with a thousand questions, although I'm sure I will ! This Miami thing is just so much more complicated than I thought it would be!

[Keeper]

Be sure to give Crisp a rep..if you liked the info..

[Marlin331]

I received it... thank you!

[keatingkc]

I am moving to Miami as well in about 6 weeks with an 8 year old and a 9 nine year old. I have done EXTENSIVE research (we have known about this move for a year & I am an obsessive planner & organizer!) on the schools & neighborhoods of Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest and Coral Gables and hope that we are fortunate to find a rental (we will only be in Miami for 3 years maximum) in one of those locations. Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest and Coral Reef Elementary Schools are both highly rated on greatschools.net (and came highly recommended by some families in my husband's new office). I also liked the academic and demographic information that was provided for these schools. So many of the homes in the true "Coral Gables" area are out of our price range but I think we will be quite happy in one of those other areas. There is also a very well rated school in Kendall - Calusa (?) - but that area seems to be very congested and would extend my husband's commute time. You might want to look into it though as it seems the rents are a bit less expensive in that area.
Good luck!

[Marlin331]

Keating, where are you moving? Calusa is in a very nice area near the Calusa Country Club. Where will your husband be commuting? That location really is not that far west and if he works in Coral Gables, Doral, or Downtown Miami/Brickell the commute would be fine.

[2blan3]

Keating, thanks for the additional info. WOW! Calusa does look promising as well, I had not even heard of this school so thanks for the reccomendation! So Crisp, you say that area wouldn't be a bad commute to UM?? Could my husband still catch the Metro-rail from there, and if not from there what would the commute be like to park at the Dadeland station and catch it from there (would traffic be bad in between those two areas?). Also, if we were to choose Calusa what area should I look in, what area is covered by this school? In other words what would I type in a search for rentals? Thanks again for any info.!!

[Marlin331]

Well, a 15 minute commute to UM from Pincrest/east Kendall will double to 30 minutes if you commute from the Crossings area (name of the neighborhood serviced by both Calusa Elementary and Devon Aire K-8 Center). In medium-level traffic, it will take 15 minutes to drive from the Crossings to the Dadeland South metro rail station. If that is fine, the Crossings area is cheaper for both home sales and rents than some of the other areas I have mentioned to you. A family friend used to live back there off of SW 127th Avenue and I think it is a nice, middle to upper middle class area. Demographically, I believe it is 55% Hispanic, 35% non-Hispanic white, with the remaining 10% being either Asian/Indian or black. In other words, pretty typical for central Kendall. I would consider it as an option for you, but would not advise as to going even further west to the Hammocks area because although that area is also safe, traffic in west Kendall is pretty bad and the commute to UM will be almost 45 minutes in the morning.

[keatingkc]

My husband's new office is right by the zoo. He has recently been in Miami on two business trips and seems to think that the commute to the office from the Coral Gables/Pinecrest/Palmetto Bay area would be the best. So, I am doing a lot of my on line real estate "looking" in the Coral Reef park area.

Quite frankly, I heard about how great Calusa ES was and that the area around the Country Club was quite nice... however, I heard much more about the horrible traffic in Kendall so I didn't really look much further. We are moving to Miami from the outback of Australia but have lived in the very congested areas of NY and Washington DC and just want to avoid the traffic as much as we can. Impossible, I know! When I did searches on this forum for Kendall, there were too many negatives about the traffic right at the get go. We will be in Miami for our house hunting trip in early July and I will certainly be willing to take a closer look at it if you think it is worth it. The school i so well rated. We don't care too much about being close to downtown Miami but we do like being outdoors so location/easy access to the beach, parks, ocean, etc is important.

[Marlin331]

Wait... if your husband's office is right by Miami Metrozoo (SW 152nd Street west of the Florida Turnpike) his commute will be much faster from the Crossings (near Calusa Elementary) than from Pinecrest or Palmetto Bay. Sure, Pinecrest is better for commuting to downtown, but the Crossings area is better for commuting to the area near the zoo. The Crossings to Miami Metrozoo is a 10 minute drive because traffic is never really bad going between those two locations. There are a lot of stores/restaurants right on Kendall Drive (SW 88th Street) where you can shop/dine close to home so you really won't be stuck in traffic day-to-day around there if your husband works locally and your children go to school locally.

[cellneuron]

Why everybody try to avoid Howard drive elementary? Is it really that bad? were elementary school boundaries change often? I am interested in a house in sw 142 TE (South to the canal), I am wondering if there is any chance that this property will be redrew into coral reef in the future?

thanks