Info on Places to Live in SE Seattle/Tacoma Region (Bellevue: 2015, apartment)

[wanderbygrace]

We are strongly considering a move from Ohio to the Seattle/Tacoma area next year, and are looking for ideas on where might be the best place for us to live. While we visited the region last month to scope out the move, we need a whole lot more input before making the move. Here is some info:

Interest: S/SE area of the region, such as Puyallup, Sumner, Federal Way, Kent, Auburn, Des Moines, eastern Tacoma, Covington, Renton and Tukwila, among others.

Us: We're a 40ish couple with two kids around 10.

Schools: We want a very good school district, as we come from an excellent district now (rated in top 3% in Ohio).

Job: I'm in the finance/accounting sector and will likely be working in Federal Way.

Housing: We're looking at renting to start off with. Something like a 3BR in the $1,200-1,600 range. It can be a home, townhome, or if necessary - large apartment.

Shopping: We are NOT the shopping type, so having malls and upscale shopping isn't of value. The local Target suits us just fine.

Activities: We are not the active type people now, but that's more because Ohio is nature pathetic & vertically challenged. We'd like to be in an area that lots to do - both natural and manmade.

Community: We currently live in a suburban setting, and like that idea. Just enough people/traffic to make life interesting, but not enough to drive me insane (e.g. I-5 at rush hour). When we were out there last month, the communities of Sumner and Auburn intrigued us.

So there it is - what are your thoughts on places like Auburn, FW, Covington, Sumner, Puyallup, etc? If you have any questions, please ask. Please be brutally honest - I'd rather know the bad things now, than when I get out there.

[Inkpoe]

Out of all the cities you listed, only Covington has the highly regarded school district. The others are simply average to below average. Renton SD has some very good schools, but do your research. Their schools closer to Issaquah will be much better.

You should also include Maple Valley for the Tahoma SD which is very good.

At least with the cities you listed, you could just by-pass i5 and use either Hwy 99 (NE Tacoma, Kent, Des Moines) or Hwy 18 (Covington, MV, Sumner, Auburn Puyallup). I think your plan is good to start and reasonable.

Federal Way is very very very busy because of its shopping center, the SE portion of Tukwila is busy as well because of its mall (5 million sq feet of shopping!). The others are not as big. But all areas have easy access to nature and lots of activites abound. I think you'll like living here for sure.

[wanderbygrace]

Inkpoe, thank you so much - we hadn't really considered Covington & MV, but we will definitely look into them. In all reality, we're looking for perhaps a smaller community (esp. w/smaller schools), and it seems those might fit our interest better, am I right?

I suppose the I-90 corridor (Issaquah, et al) wouldn't be totally out of play.

[Twitch2]

Lakewood and Tacoma areas are rough areas. Everytime I hear of crime on the news it always seems to comes from Tacoma area. Then again I have never lived that far south, so I don't have first hand experience.

[Ira500]

Covington is part of the Kent school district. The school district isn't great, but the schools in Covington are among the better schools in the Kent district.
Maple Valley schools are really top notch, on par with the eastside districts like Bellevue.
Federal Way is a mixed bag, where great neighborhoods coexist with not very good ones....Puyallup is supposed to have decent schools but horrid traffic....
Des Moines has a lot of charm, especially near the waterfront.
Within Tacoma, the Proctor district has good schools, and is a lovely, pretty area that has fun restaurants, a Farmers market, and feels like a friendly small town...Tukwila has some nice houses and some really bad schools...Renton has some good schools and a lot of bad ones, but it's a really convenient location, and has more reasonably priced housing....
Lakeland Hills in Auburn is pretty nice....parts of Kent are worth looking at.

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by Ira500

Covington is part of the Kent school district. The school district isn't great, but the schools in Covington are among the better schools in the Kent district.

I'm sorry... I meant to type that but somehow overlooked that.

One thing about Tukwila (I lived here for a long time), it doesn't really have a community feel-- but Fort Dent is great. Its better to live closer to the river for the removed feel, but just... I wouldn't recommend a family living here. Maybe for a single starting out, sure. Schools suck bad here. Foster HS for me was the first school that I ever personally known actually having metal detectors at all the entrances... don't know if they still have that now, but it was bad back in the day.

I agree about the Des Moines description. My best friend lived close to the marina, and going over to her place and hanging around in town was... idyllic. Something I hope to recreate for my kid. (Highline SD sucks, but at least the HS in that area has an IB program.)

Lakewood doesn't exactly help its rep by showing up on epi of COPS. It does have some BEAUTIFUL homes though (in the nice parts, of course).

I would also throw in University Place (Tacoma) as well. Great community, good schools.

[AddieJane]

Originally Posted by Twitch2

Lakewood and Tacoma areas are rough areas. Everytime I hear of crime on the news it always seems to comes from Tacoma area. Then again I have never lived that far south, so I don't have first hand experience.

Lakewood is a little sketchy and so is south Tacoma, but North Tacoma, University Place and Gig Harbor are amazing. I sorta hate when we get lumped in with south Tacoma/Lakewood. This is a huge area, it's not all or nothing...

I just posted a long response on another thread, complete with pictures of our house/view in UP. If you are interested, check it out:

//www.city-data.com/forum/seatt...l#post23568810

There's nothing bad I could say about UP, except the weather, but that's all of western Washington. If you are into Golf, we have this famous links golfcourse that's hosting the 2015 US Open:


EDIT: Whoops, just realized this thread is super old. Sorry!