Hi guys.. new here.. moving from Pittsburgh to far eastern pa... (Morrisville: fit in, for sale)

[phatboydb]

Couple of things very important...

I have a wife and son, and they need to be safe.

My son is in 1st grade, and I'd like him to be in a nice school.

I saw a place in Morrisville PA that was nice (on the internet anyways)...

Can someone give me some help on where I should be looking close to Trenton?

Thanks a bunch!

[JasmineFlower]

What price range are you looking in? And will your wife be working? If so, where will she need to commute to?

[Tracysherm]

I live in Morrisville and I don't have kids. My street and a few areas are quite nice, but some areas in Morrisville are a little sketchy.

The school district is not good. Well I should say in the younger grades it seems to perform fine, but not when you get to middle and high school.
The families who have the means often send their kids to private school, or at least a Catholic school (even a bunch who aren't even Catholic!)

My commute to the Trenton area for work is like 12 minutes (at least it was until the Calhoun St bridge was temporarily closed for repairs. Now it's like 20 minutes

The houses in the nicer sections are in the 200-300 range, and there is an extremely nice section wedged in beside Yardley where they are like a half a million but they rarely go up for sale (those would be the folks who send the kids to private schools).

My neighbors who have small kids are fine with the schools, but most have plans to move or go to school elsewhere when middle school rolls around.

Stay away from the aformentioned sketchy sections: anything in or close to an apartment complex, anything near a nail salon or cigarette outlet, anything walking distance from inner-city Trenton. Any street where 19th century houses are broken down into 6-8 apartments each.

Where I live is pretty safe. In the 8+ years I've been there, in the non-apartment sections, the only crime we've had was: there was one car break-in down the street, one guy growing pot in his basement, and some guy doing kiddie porn on the internet a few blocks away. Our police patrol regularly, and the retired people are big on neighborhood watch.
Nearly all the crime in Morrisville in the newspapers takes place in the apartment complexes and in the parking lots of cigarette outlets.

If you don't have to worry about school districts, I think that my town is one of the "best kept secrets" in Bucks County. Of course Yardley is nicer, but they also pay a lot more for homes and taxes. My house and yard are just as nice as many in Yardley, but I pay less.

I have a dog and there are people out every night walking their dogs (and babies in strollers) greeting each other. Almost all of us on my street are professionals or at least college educated, and then there are a lot of blue-collar, decent families around too. Lots of retirees whose kids have moved away, but the parents don't want to leave. We even have a bunch of gay couples sprinkled around who fit in just fine (and whose houses and yards are much prettier than most of ours!)

My biggest problem is paying high school taxes for an underperforming school that should just be absorbed into the nearby and superior Pennsbury district. Oh, and those damned cigarette stores.

[Just1Lion]

depends on if your talking about the borough of morrisville or the side of morrisville that is part of falls twp. the falls twp side seems to be significantly nicer and is in a better school district. my commute to downtown trenton is 15 mins usually and the neighborhood seems nice. cookie cutter almost. not my thing personally, but it is a good place for raising a kid.

[phatboydb]

Well.. I should mention I am looking to rent at least for a year until I buy... Townhome maybe a condo. My son is in 1st grade. I keep telling my wife that school at this point is not incredibly important... but she insists on the schools... Thanks for the input!