Working near St. Louis Arsenal (NGA)...places to live? (Kirkwood: house, neighborhoods)

[ever_learning33]

Curious to know which suburbs would be my best bet to get a home at a decent price (around $250,000-$300,000) without a terrible commute. I would consider a terrible commute to be 35 min plus.

I wouldn't be totally against living closer (Kirkwood, Maplewood, etc) if the price and school district was sufficient. Right now we're looking at Fenton but it seems at first glance to be a bear of a commute to the Arsenal.

Thanks in advance.

[stlcitygirl]

Kirkwood, Webster Groves would be about a 20 minute commute. These burbs have much more character than Fenton.

[billiken]

Your price range will get you a smaller house in Kirkwood/Webster Groves, and a larger/newer one in Fenton. Very different feeling suburbs. I don't really think the commute from Fenton would be that bad...the worst part is probably the 44/55 exchange, and you'll deal with that regardless of which suburb you choose. 44 into downtown isn't bad during rush hour.

[flynavyj]

I don't think that 250-300k would net you a "small" house in either kirkwood or webster groves. In some locations of the county, it would net you a HUGE house, but that's all relative. Exactly what are you expecting in home size? If you're wanting appx 2000 sq ft and 4 bedrooms, 2 car garage, i think you could find that and be within your planned budget. I'm personally not a huge fan of Fenton, but as far as an area, there's nothing wrong with it. Living inside the 270 beltway can be nice for convenience, and the only thing that's bad about Kirkwood are parts of Kirkwood road which back up with traffic. I commute a similar area as you do and 44 is a breeze early in the morning (especially before 8am) I used 55 quite a bit also, and it was still very easy that early in the morning. Leaving from Creve Coeur, it would take me about 25 minutes to get to the brewery (arsenal and broadway) taking I-270 South to 44, and a couple minutes longer going all the way to 55. Once I-64 re-opened it shaved approximately 5 minutes off the drive. All in all, i'd look at the Kirkwood and Webster Areas, use prustl.com as they have a good MLS home search engine, w/ a mapping feature, and drive the neighborhoods once you move into town to get a feel for them. The benefit of Kirkwood (that i like) is they have a cute "downtown" district, it has a very small town feel, great school district, and is within reasonable distance to downtown. Also note, than when gas finally hikes to 5 bucks a gallon, all those people in fenton will be knocking your door down, as they try to buy a home closer to work!

[ever_learning33]

Kirkwood sounds like the first place we will look. I would certainly like a 2000 sq ft., 4 bedroom home if available with my budget, which is flexible if I find a place I can't turn down.

[ever_learning33]

prustl.com is an awesome websit by the way. Thanks for that!

[andyc0803]

Also something to consider, older parts of Fenton are rife with white trash. The newer stuff only started being built within the last 15 years or so once there wasn't space to build anywhere else.