What advice could you give a family looking to purchase a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area?

We currently live out of state, but will be moving to the area. We need advice on the market, neighborhoods, school districts everything.What advice could you give a family looking to purchase a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area?
i would advise that if possible you come visit... if you already have a price range in mind i could let you know the best areas to look that you could afford... as a general rule though, the dallas independant school district, as a whole, really is bad... unless you can afford to live in north dallas (housing averages 220,000 there for a 4/2/2) the suburbs of dallas offer better schools and less expensive housing and taxes... let me know any other info you have... where your job is, how much you want to spend on a house, ect and i can give you better infoWhat advice could you give a family looking to purchase a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area?
for goodness sake, check the neighborhood at night...a week night. the number of adults living in each home may surprise you. many adult family members band together to pay a mortgage. it's cheaper than rent...then they abandon the house...meanwhile...there's 10 cars parked there...many areas are nice...just do check at night
Dallas is known to be preppy to the 40's crowd and Fort Worth is down home Texan. Arlington is a bit preppy too. Go to the white Elephant Saloon (F.W.) where Walker Texas Ranger was filmed and if you like that crowd go from there. If you don't mind commuting try the surrounding areas.... lots of country. -Nice freeway system.
There are a number of new homes being built in the Grand Prairie (zip75052) area. I live there. The schools are great, neighborhoods and new stores opening. Also, along I-20 and Cooper St in between Grand Pairie and Arlington, a new shopping center area with new restaurants, stores and movie theatre has opened. We like it over here. It's nice and fairly inexpensive. The only downside is driving into Downtown Dallas (if you work there). The traffic is heavy.





Try homescape.com and enter the zip. It will list a number of new homes. Also, a lot of the older homes have been selling.





Good Luck!!
If you want to be in the city then Dallas or Fort Worth, but much better are small towns like Lucas within commuting range so you can have the best of both worlds. McKinney is less than 30 minutes from Dallas %26amp; is growing but still real pleasant, Lowry Crossing or Princeton [both are Princeton ISD, which is very good]are real short hops from there but offer nice homes not double-wides, on land, for great prices, like 1,900 sq ft on 1 acre for around $155k. They are far more ';country living'; [i.e. nice and relaxed] than Arlington, Richardson, Garland etc.


One of the best things with Cities in Texas, if you can work a schedule that is a little off the normal hours, traffic isn't bad. Living in the McKinney area gives you country living but short drives to all the amenities of the city. Dallas museums, opera, symphony, landmarks, restaurants, race tracks (dirt track, drag racing, TX Motorspeedway for NASCAR). Hospitals in McKinney, Allen, Plano, Richardson, Dallas: Healthsouth, Presbyterian, Baylor etc.


It is important to understand the difference between driving commutes in other states/TX; if I work late the I can make the 27 mile route home from Dallas, in 35 minutes, w/o breaking the speed limit, as there are only 2 lights %26amp; 1 Stop sign. At rush hour I take back roads, 24 miles, yet still make the trip in under an hour, sometimes as quick as 45 minutes.





Site w/home finding parameters including lot size:


http://www.ebby.com/properties/propertie鈥?/a>


Private lake, south of Dallas, watefront property ownership available:


http://www.private-communities.org/texas鈥?/a>


Local to Dallas area, Real Estate Agents:


http://www.melbadavis.com/


http://www.cbdfw.com/


http://www.mls.com/ you have to register to use this site, but it is useful.





Helpful Texas sites below, some of the places are a ways from Dallas, like Galveston at 300 miles, but due to open highways that's only 5-6 hours, most folks think nothing of making a run like that for a 3 or 4 day weekend. Email me any questions:


http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/


http://www.galveston.com/


http://www.cctexas.com/ Corpus Christi


http://www.portaransas.org/


http://www.txtreasure.com/ Gambling boat


http://www.nps.gov/caha/


http://www.fortworth.com/


http://search.cityguide.aol.com/dallas/


http://www.rockinr.com/ for tubing the Guadalupe river


http://www.hill-country-visitor.com/defa鈥?/a>


http://www.fossilrim.com/index.php


http://www.mesquiterodeo.com


http://www.magictimemachine.com/


http://medievaltimes.com/
Stay away from south Dallas. It is a hellhole.
My general recommendation is north of Dallas, but there are other nice areas. You will find some great info on this site. It is about Dallas in general so you have to look for the subjects about relocation, but there are lots of them and they are very informative.





http://www.city-data.com/forum/dallas/





When you find an area of interest, check out the schools at this site:





http://www.greatschools.net/





Good luck and welcome to the area. I hope you are coming from somewhere with a much higher cost of living and get a great deal here.
Get ready to drive. It is a buyer's market now, but the nicer areas with the best schools, etc. are in the northern suburbs. I'll give you a link to a real estate agent that I used when I moved to the area. She worked for us like we were family and I would recommend her to any one moving to the area.
We can help you better if we know where you will work and how much money you will have to spend. Otherwise, this is a ';how long is a snake'; question.
Hi, I was also looking at that about 6 months ago, me and my honey met a nice realtor lady who took 3 of her days just for us... We went to practically every town around the fort worth dallas area... we actually thought about fort worth and were sure that we were going to purchase there... but as we visited the towns asked the people about their towns, we came to the conclusion that the best one we liked was Arlington! central and south arlington, is awesome, I found it beautiful, it has everything you would need around the corner, like targets, walmarts, markets, restaurants, shopping centers, etc... but yet once you drive into your community it gives a small town feel. Coming from california, homes are super affordable for us... we purchased a 3,000 sq ft home with 5 bdrms, 3 bth, 2 living areas, in a nice community for $124K. Our area is neat the Mansfield school district and I've heard it's one of the best ones. So I reccomend Arlington but I do agree with someone who said grand prairie, that was a nice one too and forth worth was nice too... So I reccomend you to check out those 3... I wouldn't go to dallas, I'd rather be close to it than live in it. good luck.