What suburban areas would be the best locations to relocate a young family? (Pittsburgh: layoffs, neighborhoods)

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

See, sub-forum! I'm not the only one who dislikes Cranberry!

Yeah, but you're still the biggest jagoff a'nat.

[okaydorothy]

Take the kids to the schools and let them get a feel for it. I know they are young, ; ours are 12 and 14. But last year we picked 4 of the top notch school districts and toured the schools with the kids. I was able to see their opinion and see what they thought. Many people thought Hampton was a great school ; my kids hated it. Their choice in ranking was ; South Fayette, Quaker Valley, Fox Chapel and then Hampton.
Even though kids are flexible, I thought it was necessary for them to like where they would spend most of their days.

[MDYinzer]

Here's the website I like to use when browsing Pittsburgh area real estate. Very user friendly, easy to search based on individual township, school district, etc.

Pittsburgh Real Estate & Pittsburgh Homes for Sale | Prudential Preferred Realty

Lots of good ideas were mentioned here. My personal pick based on what you said would be pretty much anything in the Canon-McMillan school district (Washington County). It's just across the county line, all of it is easily accesible from 79. The airport is easily accessible. My wife has some family that live there. They're very happy with the school district, and they have a couple teenagers who are involved in a bunch of sports and other activities. Being in Washington County, the property taxes are a lot less than comparable properties that can sometimes be literally across the street depending on where you live.

Also, there's a very large business park there, Southpointe. I'm sure you could find office space there when the time comes. I think you mentioned that in an early post.

[otter119]

All set to visit the area with my wife. We will be in town Wednesday through Saturday. I was hoping for better weather.

Here's to first impressions.

[Hopes]

Pittsburgh is not its prettiest right now. Have a safe trip and let us know what you think!

[otter119]

Just got back home from a whirl wind of a trip. My wife and I did the full tour and have mainly targeted the North Hills for our landing spot. We toured the South Hills and parts of Washington County. We are quite a bit of research to do to continue our education on the areas we liked. Pine Richland, North Alleghany, Hampton and Mars all seemed to make the list. My wife has pretty big concerns about the sizes of some of the schools as well as the housing market. If anyone has good information on any of the schools listed, please chime in.

Thanks,

[otter119]

We did like the South Fayette school/ campus but the area wasn't what my wife was looking for. Canonsburg (not to offend anyone) was awful and the Cranberry area was nice but the location of the schools was horrible. I can't imagine having to go to Seneca Valley High School if you lived in the southern portion of Cranberry. The distance along with the differences in demographic in the school district was a huge turn-off.

[Retiredcoach]

Originally Posted by otter119

Just got back home from a whirl wind of a trip. My wife and I did the full tour and have mainly targeted the North Hills for our landing spot. We toured the South Hills and parts of Washington County. We are quite a bit of research to do to continue our education on the areas we liked. Pine Richland, North Alleghany, Hampton and Mars all seemed to make the list. My wife has pretty big concerns about the sizes of some of the schools as well as the housing market. If anyone has good information on any of the schools listed, please chime in.

Thanks,

North Allegheny and Hampton are school districts on a higher plateau educationally than either Mars or Pine-Richland. Mars has the lower Butler County taxes, but higher home prices may offset these tax benefits. Pine-Richland is an affluent district in disarray with a mega elementary school of over 1000 students in grades 4-5-6 (Eden Hall) that may be a real deterrent to many parents wishing for smaller community schools and higher achievement levels. Hampton is a topnotch school district that is continually growing, but is smaller than NA. NA has the highest enrollment of the group of schools listed, but there are smaller elementary schools and in each of three middle schools. Living in North Allegheny myself, I know that homes sell very quickly, especially those in the $200000 range.

[Hopes]

The housing market in all these areas are very stable. Pittsburgh's metro has always had a stable, steady housing market. No booms or busts here. You won't make a killing when you sell your house. You won't lose money either. Just be careful to check the assessment values and do your research about property value before making an offer. Don't entirely rely on your realtor to tell you if a house is over priced. A good tool is the Allegheny County Assessment website. Allegheny County Assessment You can look up any property to see the history of selling prices and the current assessment value. The county recently finished a reassessment so the assessments are better guides than in the past, but still look up your own comparables too.

I agree with Retired Coach's comments about the school districts. We often disagree because he lives in North Allegheny and I live in Hampton. If you are concerned about the size of the schools, Hampton is significantly smaller. The township is smaller too so that means less houses on the market to chose from, and they sell fast. North Allegheny is a monster because it is comprised of multiple townships, but the size isn't relevant for elementary aged children, depending on how long you plan to live here.

To put it into perspective.

Hampton has 3,100 students K-12.
North Allegheny has 6,546 students K-12.

Both school districts are top notch. If you can't find a house in Hampton, don't be afraid of North Allegheny.

North Allegheny excels at special education for autism. That's not its only strength by a long shot but extremely noteworthy.

[otter119]

Originally Posted by Retiredcoach

Pine-Richland is an affluent district in disarray with a mega elementary school of over 1000 students in grades 4-5-6 (Eden Hall)

When you say "disarray", what exactly do you mean? Are they looking to add more schools or are they having problems with the current situation and just living with it?