Neighborhoods in Parrish (Brandon, Ellenton, Palm Aire: apartment, rent, house prices)

[JP11283]

Me and my wife currently rent an apartment in Palm Aire and are looking to buy a house in a year or so. I work in the Lakewood Ranch business park and she works in Brandon. We like the area we are renting in, but houses are out of our price range. We'd like to spend no more than around $165,000 for our first house.

House prices in the newer neighborhoods of Parrish seem much more reasonable, and Parrish is still close enough to everything for us. Which neighborhoods are decent and which should we avoid? Which have an abnormally high percentage of renters? How are the schools? Anything else you can tell us that would be helpful would be great! Thanks!

[TamRE]

Are you looking to live in a deed-restricted community or non-deed restricted? Kingsfield, Forest Creek and Harrison Ranch might be good choices within your price range. It depends on what type of homeowner association fees you are willing to pay and what type of amenities you might be looking for too. Parrish is in Manatee County Schools - School District of Manatee County Florida.

[Sunshine Rules]

There are quite a few newer communities in the Parrish & Ellenton areas, all of the newer communities will be deed restricted.

A few are within Community Development Districts (CDD) that have additional annual CDD fees that appear on the annual property tax bill. Copperstone (Parrish), Harrison Ranch (Parrish) are 2 I can think of that have CDDs.

Most of the Parrish area will fall into zip code 34219 for your searches, Ellenton will mostly fall within 34221 and 34222 zip codes.

If schools are important to you, be sure to check those carefully for the different communities as you will find the various communities fall within a number of school districts.

The Parrish - Ellenton areas do offer lower prices than you'll find closer to Lakewood Ranch. The trade off is that many of these are miles away from the interstate, some are definitely out in the countryside.

In the Ellenton area, within your price point you may wish to look into Old Mill Preserve (new homes by Taylor Morrison), South Oak ( Highland Homes), Kingfield (slightly older but nice amenities), Aberdeen (but be careful with homes built in the early 2000's as some there did have chinese drywall), Covered Bridge (nice amenities).

In the Parrish area, Forest Creek (also has new construction by Neal), Harrison Ranch (Pulte Homes), Palm Lake Estates (does not have a community pool), Copperstone (clubhouse & lots of amenities, also new construction by Ryland Homes), Creekside Preserve (M/I Homes), River Woods (clubhouse & amenities).

If you're thinking $160's range, have you looked at all into new construction on Lockwood Ridge Rd by Neal Communities? Also in the same area are Regal Oaks (2000's built homes), Barrington Ridge (also 2000's built), Lionshead (mostly 1990's built), Creekwood (1990's - early 2000's built) and perhaps the Trails (1989 - 2007 built). All of those neighborhoods would keep you nearer to your current location of Palm Aire/ Lakewood Ranch.

If you like Lakewood Ranch, there are (resale) homes in Lakewood Ranch neighborhoods such as Greenbrook and Summerfield within your price range.

The neighborhoods I mentioned above would fall into zip codes 34203 and 34243 and the 2 in Lakewood Ranch would be in the 34202 zip code.