Des Moines Nesties
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Where should we buy a house...
We are thinking about moving in the next 6months - a year. This house is great but the bedroom situation is weird, especially if we have more kids.
We are thinking about Grimes or the northwest area of Johnston/Urbandale.
Where do you live? Love/hate? How do I know which schools are good??
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Re: Where should we buy a house...
Well, we live i the NW side of Urbandale, so you are off to a good start.
For us, we just knew we wanted to live somewhere on the west side of des moines. We looked quite a bit in various areas of town, but this made the most sense for us. The south or east sides were very inconvenient for adam's work (and they aren't near much "action" so they were out for us. I loved waterbury and south of grand, but S of G was out of our price range, and waterbury didn't have much for availability when we were looking (both feed to good schools however. I believe that hanawalt (spelling) is the best public elementary in the state.
I liked WDM, but all of adam's clinics are north of 235, so we wanted to stick to the clive/johnston/urbandale/waukee area. We LOVE our neighborhood, it is very well maintained and everyone is very friendly. Our girls will go to Walnut Hills, which is a waukee school. We have heard great things about it. We do live close to DM Christian as well, should we decide to go that route for high school.
Speaking of buying a new home, our next door neighbors are selling their house this spring. We are SOOOO sad to see them go, they are awesome. So, it is my personal mission to find a great replacement. If anyone wants to have some kick butt neighbors, they should really think about this house!
It is a beautiful home - 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, gorgeous huge bar in the basement, awesome finishes. If I had to guess, I'd say it will be somewhere in the $400k range??
As much as I'd love to live you near you, All-His, that is twice our budget :-) haha
I did drive around your area today and really love the area. That is where we are thinking about buying. We don't plan to live there for a long time (probably 7 years) and then build our forever home. But I'd like G to go to a good elementary school. It's just sooo much to think about. We have an appt with our realtor so hopefully he can help us alot. I just want to be on top of this things time, I think last time we really didn't get what we were doing/buying :-)
Come live by us!!! Honestly we got a steal on our land and if you pick one of the non-walkout lots it would be even more of a steal I'm sure. lol!
We live in johnston off of 86th a little ways. I love that it feels like we're in the country a little bit but we're just a few blocks from a lot of action too. I will say that Johnston property taxes are a bit high though.
We moved here from NJ a few months ago. We are currently in a new home/development in Clive with Waukee school district. We are also looking at where we want to buy as we are currently renting (well my husband's company is renting it for us).
It all depends on what you want. We are not fans of the development feeling in the newer west area (clive, urbandale, waukee). Some people are.We also are seeking at least .5 acres but rather 1 acre. So the newly developed areas are not right for us in that regard. Our brown boy is adopted and the area we live now has very little diversity. I've scrutinized all of the public data on the schools in all local districts - the % of diversity is sparse. That isn't right for our child and frankly even for us it's a little too white. Being from the E. Coast we are used to a more colorful base of neighbors and friends.
Our agent has shown us nice areas in DM. We love south of grand homes but they don't come up for sale often (as you drive through the neighborhoods you rarely even see a real estate sign). The nicer few that are up right now require a bit of updating - more effort than we want to give. We are told these homes are often sold word of mouth. Of course this all depends on what you are looking for, and what your price point is.
We started by analyzing the schools elem-HS (though I hope some improvements happen in the next decade + to the HS in the DM area). I would like for DS to go to Greenwood Elem. if public.
The Urbandale/Waukee public schools receive the highest test scores and ratings. Of course, as someone else said Ankeny has more land/house for the money and their schools are also highly rated - though some of them have a very high student-teacher ration (like 1:22 vs. state average of 1:14) but some of this is because of the new development and them continuing to build new schools to accommodate.
GRIMES!!! Seriously, we love our area. There are also lots of other new areas in Grimes. We live on a great cul-de-sac and have awesome neighbors. We still have some empty lots
Dallas Center Grimes Schools are great (from what I hear)...the town is small, yet close enough to everything to have easy access. We have a large lot that we bought much cheaper than anything we could find in Johnston or Urbandale. Home prices are slightly lower than other places as well. We are hopefully getting a new YMCA and sports complex in the next few years. Easy access to Fareway, Wal-mart and a 5 min drive to Target
Married 10.11.08
Baby LJ 05.21.10
TheRookieChef.com
I will second MJ! I have a GREAT house for you to buy that is just two blocks from MJ. She is a great neighbor and the rest of the neighborhood is great. This house has four bedrooms (one is a great office/playroom), three baths, a HUGE backyard and deck, an awesome hawkeye bathroom, and gorgeous hardwood flooring. The next door neighbor has a pool, has Hawkeye football season tickets that he offers his neighbors (ok just his next door neighbors
), and is super nice. The one down side of the house....Harli and I might be over regularly because we miss it terribly!
Talking to a realtor will be a great idea. There are pockets of homes around this area it seems. Right around us probably ranges $250-500k I'm guessing, but just a few blocks away it is more $200k range. (Of course, a couple blocks in the other direction is the $700+ range). It is nice having such a diversity in housing around here. I also like that in our neighborhood there were tons of different builders, so all the homes look different. I think if you are just looking for a 7 yr home (we were looking LT), you can still find some good deals, perhaps by looking for a house that a builder foreclosed on.
I didn't realize you were pretty close to us! Our really good friends live right by you. This will make it easy when we do our lunch/playdate.
Neena Mae. 1/7/10
"A baby nursing at a mother's breast is an undeniable affirmation of our rootedness in nature." - David Suzuki
I student taught at Webster Elementary. It was truly a fabulous school. Honestly, in the area that you are looking at you are not going to find a bad school.
If you find a loan product that works, I think you will probably have a lot of options. My bro lives in the neighborhood north of VWM. The house is about 30 years old, but in great shape and I would say well built. You will have a mix of ages in a neighborhood of that age. Probably the case on either side of 100th in Clive. Some original owners that would be empty nesters, some with teenagers and some newer to the neighborhood with LO's. Another Clive neighborhood that would probably have potential is off of 128th just north of Walgreen's. You would be close to businesses that you would likely frequent regularly and a great park, of course close to the greenbelt. There would be great neighborhoods off of Ashworth in the VW Drive area. One of my former coworkers lives south of Ashworth near 22nd and has really enjoyed his neighborhoo. WDM around 50th and EP True - plenty of businesses, restaurants, parks, and good schools. You really are in a price range that would give you lots and lots of options.