Indiana Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Another question
Sorry to keep bothering you guys, but I had another question. DH is getting more on board with the Indianapolis idea, and now we're thinking moving within the next year might be a good option. My question is, what are the best areas to live in around the city? We don't want to live downtown. We'd be looking for a place with single family homes with yards at a decent price (under $200K), and a good family feel. I think Carmel is supposed to be nice, but I don't know about anything else. Any thoughts? What areas are said to have good public schools? Thanks for being so helpful, ladies!
Re: Another question
We are currently in Castleton and the North side is nice. I like Carmel and Fishers but the drive would be long. Since I work in a school on the south side we are actually looking in Greenwood, its family friendly and we can get a bigger a house then up on the north side. DH also likes it because he feels there is less traffic down there then up by us.
Check out sites like talktotucker.com and other real estate sites to get a feel for house prices and what you get for the money. I recommend taking a weekend or two and checking out the areas to see what they like. Most cities also have websites to check out.
We did a year long lease on an apt to give us time to figure out where we wanted to live and it really helped us because originally DH said he would never live on the South side and after a while he changed his mind.
Carmel/Fishers are nice areas, but 200K will not go as far in regards to housing. Also, the cost of living is a bit higher. Because those areas have exploded in the past few years, traveling from there from or into Indianapolis can be a serious pain -- particularly during rush hour.
Are you wanting to actually be in city, or outside the city? That makes a big difference. While Indianapolis is not as big as Chicago, it is still big. If you live on one side and work on the other it will be a decent commute.
I think it is a good idea to start looking at neighborhoods, but personally I would figure out the job situation first. I also agree with pp. We moved to the SW side and thought we would love it and now hate it. I wish we had rented first before committing to the area. DH works on the other side and hates his commute.
What are you looking for in your area, what things are important to you? A suburban feel? A city feel? Cost of living? Schools? etc...
I agree with PP to rent for a year and get a feel and also, you can find much more house for the money outside Carmel. We rented for a year in Ft. Wayne and are very glad!!
Don't rule out the westside--Avon and Brownsburg have had a lot of growth the last 10 years and there are lot of nice subdivisions and great schools.
I lived in Broad Ripple and loved it, but understand that home prices have stayed pretty steady the last couple of years. Plus I have heard that it is not as safe as it used to be--not dangerous, but not perfect. It also does NOT have a suburban feel.
Are you set on not living downtown because you are looking for a more suburban feel? I only ask because lots of DH friends from law school are buying town homes and even some detached homes in and very near downtown and love it because they can walk to work or have a very short commute. Just thought I would put that out there!
Glad you're giving Indy some serious thought--we LOVED it and miss many things about it!
Renting is a good option.
I have lived in the Castleton area for the last 5 years and I love it here. Then again, I chose this area because it is close to I-69, and I want my family in Fort Wayne to have an easy time finding us. There are a lot of great places to live in Indy.
We thought about renting for a year, but with a black lab we didn't want to deal with the headache. You can find apartments that allow dogs of that size, so that wasn't a problem. We closed on our house in central Illinois in Aug 2008, had most of our stuff in storage after that and just wanted to get in a house and get comfortable again. So we decided not to do the apartment trial of the city. My husband works at the main airport near the junction of I-465 and I-70. The reason I say main is that there are about 20 airports in the Indy area so I've had to clarify it a few times.
We also had friends in the Indy area which helped our decision a bit by asking their preferences and why they thought that way.
We bought a house in Greenwood, actually Center Grove area. We like the area because of the easy access to whatever we need. Some areas it seemed like I would need to go more than 15-20 min to get to a mall to pick up a last min item for a special occasion and I wasn't crazy about that. We also like the idea of the school districts in the Greenwood area. On paper, Center Grove was top, Greenwood wasn't far off, and Clark Pleasant wasn't that far from it either. Even if we didn't have kids eventually, we know the house should hold its value to some degree because of the good school district. That might be something to consider just because of resale value.
Other areas we considered included Zionsville. We weren't crazy about the craziness of the Carmel area driving. Also knew our money wouldn't go as far. At the time Zionsville houses were in general running more per square foot when we bought (we were looking in Oct 2008, closed on the house we built in March 2009). We did look at both new and pre exisiting homes but just couldn't find what we wanted in part because we wanted a basement. Broad Ripple is supposed to be a nice area and was recommended to me in part because of the walking to local stores, etc and the fact it's pretty dog friendly.
We were really happy with our realtor, Collen Gordon with Keller Williams in Greenwood. She's lived in the Indy area for most of her life and sold a friend of mine their house in Carmel but also helped us with the Greenwood area. One thing I liked about her was her was that she was easy to talk to and also a great listener. We made up a list of what we wanted in a community, gave it to her and told her what areas we were considering (in part based on online searches as suggested by someone else). She went through it with us and either clarified or confirmed our opinions at that point which made us feel more comfortable about the area we picked. One of my husband's coworkers said that his realtor said that Greenwood was too congested but was showing houses in Brownsberg because it was less congested which completely confused me. Then again I've been in slow but moving traffic on a Sat afternoon in Greenwood but been in "it takes me 20 min to get through a stop light" in Brownsberg. But they are happy in Brownsberg which is what matters.
Good luck! Let us know if you have any more questions. HTH