What are some family friendly pittsburgh suburbs??? (Philadelphia, Bethel Park: upper-class, for sale)

[ioielissaioi]

My family and I are from Philadelphia and are looking to relocate to Pittsburgh. We currently live in a row home is South Philly and are looking for a single family home in the area surrounding Pittsburgh. I am a Respiratory Therapist and will need to be relatively close to a hospital, my husband is a stay at home dad to our 3 children ages 3 and 1. We will be looking for a relatively large lot (with about an acre of land), family friendly, young neighborhood. If any of this is ringing a bell, please let me know! Thanks a bunch.

[Renaldo5000]

Anywhere in North Hills (North Allegheny, Ross, Shaler) is good. You can look at Mt. Lebanon and Bethel Park in the South Hills if you don't mind bottlenecked traffic to downtown. Plum and Pine are both decent if you like subdivision kind of stuff.

Check out Upper St. Clair, Fox Chapel or Sewickley if you have money.

[greg42]

Might help if you define "relatively close" and a rough idea of your price range.

An acre of land is not common in areas within about 20 miles of the city. The few places I know of within that range where there are whole subdivisions of 1+ acre lots are for houses well north of the half a mil mark.

Now, you will find some scattered lots of that size throughout, possibly more common in the northern areas. Also you'll find them farther away from the city. Neither of these is necessarily conducive to a family friendly neighborhood, but you never know. If all the houses are an acre apart, people aren't really that close. Plus, the scattered acre lot places seem more likely to be on through roads, etc, than on smaller, less-traveled (or dead end) streets.

Now certainly there are hospitals that aren't in the city, and thus you could be close to one of those with perhaps a little more likelihood of an acre lot, but you'll have more potential choices of employment within reasonable commute the closer you are to the city.

[Honest Bob]

I have to agree with Greg.

At the same time I also have to quip up and say that traditional neighborhoods change every day. As the older people die and move out and the younger people move in, you will find that the younger people are all a part of the ME generation. Where people do not do things for each other anymore and are only out for themselves.

You definitely have the right idea, to find a nice neighborhood, a big yard and a nice house. But asking for anything like that within 40 miles of Pittsburgh is going to be expensive right now.

The people who already are in your situation, who might even be able to afford the house payment, probably can't afford the taxes and insurance.
As I was telling my neighbor last night, it takes a two income family just to make ends meet. Now with Greece at the edge of a Depression, it will drag down the economy's of other nations such as ours and everyone will suffer.

They say that 7 out of every 10 - One Hundred Dollar Bills, is not being used in the United States, but has been carried over seas by foreigners and is now an accepted currency in countries such as China and many of the nations that has gone to the Euro system. When one countries economy collapses, other countries that relied on their business will also collapse and in time the American money will dry up and when people are out of work, they don't go to the hospital as much and when the hospital can't pay their bills and salaries then they have to lay people off and pretty soon everybody is out of a job.

This economy thing is only going to get worse before it gets better.

My Advice to ioielissaioi is to rent a house in a neighborhood where you might be interested in living. Get to know the town and it's people and make sure that your income is stable before you take the big plunge and buy a new / used but new to me, home.
It might take several attempts before you finally find the right situation where you know - this is where I want to live.

[Renaldo5000]

I respectfully disagree with the posters who say there are no properties that have some space near the city. North Hills is like what...five miles away from downtown? There are tons of homes that have woods and big yards down little secluded roads up there. A common price for a decent place is $150,000. For $250,000 you can get a pimp place with tons of room. 20 miles out of the city? That's the forest. There's nothing out there.

OP, are you looking for a rural-ish setting? Do you want to be near bix-box stores? Do you want a newer subdivision? Or maybe a small town with a walkable downtown? What is your price range? What kind of lifestyle are you wanting to gravitate toward?

Also, I would advise getting a job first before you move here.

[findinghope]

what exactly is north hills comprised of? is there a list of town you can give me? or is it a specific zipcode?
when looking for homes in north hills, that name doesnt come up

[greg42]

Originally Posted by iwonderwhy2124

I respectfully disagree with the posters who say there are no properties that have some space near the city. North Hills is like what...five miles away from downtown? There are tons of homes that have woods and big yards down little secluded roads up there. A common price for a decent place is $150,000. For $250,000 you can get a pimp place with tons of room. 20 miles out of the city? That's the forest. There's nothing out there.

Heh, no, not really. First of all, North Hills is a wide area and can be anything from 5 miles away to 15-20. West Deer? That can be North Hills to some. Franklin Park? Check. Richland? Ross? Pine? Shaler? All check. And I still haven't named them all. All somewhat different spots and widely varying distances from downtown.

There are not tons of homes with an acre lot. There do exist, sure, and only a small portion of those will be up for sale at any given time. And a desirable home with room for 3 (or is it just 2? can't tell from the first post exactly, bit confusing) children is not likely to be as low $150k if it's on an acre lot in any of those areas. Remember, an acre is 8 times as big as a typical close-in 5000 sq ft lot. "Large lot" when you're dealing with closer to the city is often well under an acre. Even half an acre would be considered a large lot in most areas within 20 miles.

20 miles outside of the city defines plenty of areas people live in and commute from that are not at all rural. That's 20 *driving* miles, not useless as-the-crow-flies miles. Cranberry, a lot of Wexford area, in other directions as well (any place over the border in Beaver, Washington or Westmoreland counties).

[greg42]

Originally Posted by findinghope

what exactly is north hills comprised of? is there a list of town you can give me? or is it a specific zipcode?
when looking for homes in north hills, that name doesnt come up

Most people consider this wide list of townships/boroughs to be part of the North Hills:

In the I-279 to I-79 and accompanying Rt 19 corridor: Ross, West View, Ohio, McCandless, Franklin Park, Pine, Marshall

In the Rt 8 corridor: Shaler, Hampton, Richland

West Deer, maybe. Millvale and Etna? Along Rt 28 it's tough to say North Hills so much, but they are mostly north of the city. Farther up Rt 28 it tends to become its own thing, but some people consider anything on the left side (north and west) of Rt 28 to be North Hills, I think. I just don't find Fox Chapel, O'Hara, etc. to be North Hills. Lesser known bits include Reserve (next to Shaler and Millvale) and Bradford Woods (tiny place next to Marshall and/or Pine).

Confusing: Parts of Franklin Park, Pine and even McCandless are referred to by the Post Office name/zip Wexford 15090. In Rt 8, they all three seem to have separate Post Office names and zips: Glenshaw 15116 (Shaler), Allison Park 15101 (Hampton?) and Gibsonia 15044 (Richland? I usually get those two confused.) McCandless and Ross get Pittsburgh zips 15229 and 15237. Much of Marshall is Warrendale 15090. Tiny Bradford Woods gets its own damn zip code as I recall, a bit of leaning on some politicians by a bunch of the rich folks that live there, I'm sure.

There are no such actual boroughs or townships as Gibsonia, Allison Park, Glenshaw, Wexford or Warrendale; they exist from old names still used with their respective zip codes. But when you look for houses these names may be used interchangeably with the township/borough names.

[Renaldo5000]

Originally Posted by findinghope

what exactly is north hills comprised of? is there a list of town you can give me? or is it a specific zipcode?
when looking for homes in north hills, that name doesnt come up

Ross, Shaler, McCandless, etc.. Just look at google maps and look at all of the neighborhoods that surround McKnight Road.

[Renaldo5000]

Originally Posted by greg42

There are not tons of homes with an acre lot. There do exist, sure, and only a small portion of those will be up for sale at any given time.

Huh? An acre is 200 x 200 feet. That is not that much. There are thousands and thousands of properties within 20 miles of the city that have that much space. I routinely drive through Gibsonia and all through the North Hills. These areas are only 5-15 miles away and I see woods and tucked away homes all over the place. And, they aren't $500,000.


$325,000 house 13.5 miles away from downtown:

Spacious custom built ranch (http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/reo/1729279653.html - broken link)

$335,000 house 12 miles away from downtown:

4 bedroom 3.5 bathroom remodeled home, 1.46 acre lot (http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/reb/1726359614.html - broken link)


$275,000 house 11.4 miles away from downtown:

SPRAWLING RANCH ON GORGEOUS 1.2 ACRE LOT! (http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/reb/1719154925.html - broken link)


And those are upper-class nice homes in nice neighborhoods with amazing schools. If you got a smaller and more modest house in a so-so school district you could knock $100,000 off of those prices.

OP: It took me one minute to find those three examples. You can totally find a normal home in a country-ish setting within twenty miles of downtown.