So, now that we've been back in Dallas for a year, the wife and I are stepping up the house search.  Trying to keep it below 250k, but in a neighborhood where we are

• not too far from my work near Addison


• easy access to her art gallery friends near downtown and Fair Park


• reasonably low crime rate (I'll elaborate)


• older construction, single story, decent lot

Realtor has been sending me properties around this area, a little more north and west than I grabbed in the screen shot:



No kiddos, so we aren't worried about schools at this time.  As to crime rate, I know if sort of ebbs and flows depending on police presence, DART lines, etc.  I'm just want a neighborhood where I can go to Houston for work for a few days and not come home to find the cats molested and the wife up on blocks with her rims gone...

Any other areas I should be looking at?  I know the mayor of Dallas is trying to pimp and revitalize the areas south of downtown and there are some decent homes if you dig.  That seems like a good way to get in on the ground floor of possible property value increases but at the same time...  It's like Oak Cliff...  The areas taken over by the young professionals trying to catch some of the hip art culture is nice, but go a little bit out of the gentrified neighborhood and it's still fuggin' Oak Cliff..  Not that I don't enjoy watching a homeless guy shouting at a dog and all that.

That area of the map is more Mesquite than Dallas, used to live around where Bahamas Drive is at.  Really built up area these days.  On the flip side of La Prada is Dallas.  That area is easy to get to the Fair Park area but a bit of a hike to Addison.


Has the realtor sent you anything in this area?

Yep.  Probably about half a dozen in that general area.

I need to find of of the police neighborhoods like they had in my home town.  There were like 3 or 4 where it seemed like LPD guys all bought houses.  No crime in those areas.  

There are guard shack secured, patrolled, gated communities to the north and south of Frankford just east of the tollway. They used to be patrolled several years ago, last time I was in there. I forget what they are called. I think you can get in there starting at about 250k in the community to the north of Frankford. Or you can spend millions in the gated area to the south. I would imagine that the HOA dues are pricey in either area. If you want low crime and convenience in the city........ gates, armed guards on patrol, high HOA dues. You could get into my neighborhood for half what you plan on spending. I wouldn't exactly call it a low crime area.

Some decent areas still, but that area has become Katrinaized, esp on Frankford west of the Tollway, past Midway and into Carrollton.

Yep, I call that area home. I don't know of an apartment complex on Frankford west of the tollway that is not section 8 these days. Most apartment dwellers that I know moved to Addison, paying $1500 for 600 or so square feet. Nice complexes for single folks.

Yep.  Sadly that area used to be considered upscale with all the various corporate offices and tech agencies being there, the Lucent-Alcatel days.  Then it went bust and much of the L-A tech buildings was sold off to create Pope John Paul High School.  

I'm actually right around your area (ish) - Spring Valley and the Tollway.  It's basically (West to East) OFFICE PARKS - Tollway - A few nice places - Montfort - Stabbytown - Preston - Nice again.

I'm also trying to avoid HOAs as well.  I don't intend to keep a car on blocks in the front yard, but HOAs just bother me on general principles.  I know they can have their benefits, but it seems like they have a little more power than I like my neighbors to have.  When I first moved out to AZ in 2006, the courts out there smacked down the HOAs pretty hard which seemed to make them a little more bearable.

I'm also looking for something with some front and back yard.  After spending 25% of my life in the military and another 35% moving for work and being an apartment gnome, I really want a yard.  I realize I'm probably going to hate mowing after a year and xeriscape that bastard (another reason not to have an HOA), but I kind of want the option for a yard.  That rules out a lot of the planned community/McMansion areas where you can lean out your window and grab the neighbor's coffee pot.

Have you looked in the Brookhaven area? Where Spring Valley T's into Marsh, just southwest of there.

Haven't really looked there.  We've been staying inside 635 and east of 75 for the initial looking.  I actually want a little more commute (I know, it's weird, but I have audio books) and, if I transition jobs to anything either along 75 or downtown (my two likely spots), it works.

No way would I live in that map.  I live a little south of that area (in Mesquite, just a better part).  

If I had 250k to spend, I'd move East (although my wife and I both live in Mesquite and the only time I go west is to GTs & Samsclub).

Really? 250 to live in that map no way.

Be careful over there. I used to live off Ferguson. It was a nice neighborhood, 2100 sqft house, hardwood floors, large oak trees, but we were literally on the wrong side of the rail road tracks. My street was right on the edge of Eddie Bernice Johnson's wart on the ass of society congressional district and our elementary school only had 6 white kids on the books with 80% of the students receiving free or reduced lunch.

A company I worked for used Freeman Teull on Ferguson for speaker refurbishing. We were told not to go there after 3:00.

Part in bold is one of the big selling points for that area.  Nice older homes, just kinda near the sketchy area.  Kids aren't a big concern though.  If they happen, home school or the closest Jesuit school I can find.

Have you considered farther out? We moved from wylie out the back side of royse city / blackland area because I was sick of living in a house 6 feet from the neighbors. I needed space.  We wound up in the upper end of your price range but now have 2600 sq ft home on a 2 ac lot with woods on 2 sides.  Pretty quiet but still only 6 or 8 minutes from 30 if i was ever inclined to go into dallas.

When I divorced, my wife tried to stick me with the house and the payments. I was like no way, she kicked me out and I had already moved all my stuff. I would have struggled to make the house payments just to listen to the random gunfire from the apartments a 1/4 mile down the road. So she got the house, her salary was twice what I made and she didn't make the payments and let it go into foreclosure.

I'm a little bitter. If she had held onto it for another year, she could have sold it and turned a nice profit or at least broke even. I put so much work into that house, I don't even want to drive by it.

You're thinking of Plano there. DSC/Alcatel/Alcatel-Lucent was at Plano Pkwy/Coit. I worked there from 1994-2002.

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Wish I was ready to sell. Maybe by the time I am, you'll be looking in McKinney.  One story built in 2000, a little over 2000 sq. ft., gas heat and stove top and NO HOA!

I totally get that.  It's one of the reasons I'm not looking in Frisco or a lot of the areas my friends and peers are looking and buying.  All of them have tiny, tiny lots just ass to nuts with the neighbors.  After years of barracks, GP Mediums, CONEXes and various apartments, I'm all about a little breathing room.

Looking at Royce now.  Interesting stuff out that way.  Couple lots I could probably put a supressed .22 range in.  

Oh yeah... The building of the Bush tollway messed up my mental division of the area, I just remember the tech boom from 97-2003.   I say 03 as the company I was with one day laid us all off, closed up shop a few month later.  

OP., find a house yet?

Lol. Just put a couple plates our for .22 and the guy 2 houses down shoots all kinds of stuff. Neighbirs dont mind but i ordered a suppressor anyway. Look me up if you do come this way, be nice to make some other friends in the area with similar interests.

Haven't looked at real-estate prices there in a while, but what about Richardson?   My old man lives there and it's stays quiet.  Low crime rate.  Close to Addison through multiple east/west roads.  Tollway or 75 to get downtown.   The trip to/from fair park likely sucks during rush-hour.   Bush to the north for extended east/west travel. If I don't end up moving further out to escape Dallas county, I'd consider Richardson or perhaps the Lake Highlands .  I don't know much about the Lake Highlands area, but I drive past/through there frequently.   Seems nice anyway and convenient to work and the places my family likes/needs to visit.   Being around the lake there are lots of hilly spots/roads and as such I'd be concerned about foundation integrity/issues if I a home wasn't on a somewhat level lot.

Mesquite's gone downhill over the 20-odd years.  While I'm sure there are a few sweet spots, I'm not sure I'd consider Mesquite these days.  South-Dallas/Katrina/Pleasant Grove are encroaching in a big way.  Low cost housing.  PD works their ass off, but there seems to be a non-stop tide of hood-rats and their issues.  The politicians are politicking and avoid negative publicity at all costs.  Expected of course.  Last few years of their Christmas in the Park event have made the news for gang-fights, shots-fired, etc.  There's a Mesquite Scanner Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=mesquite%20scanner and a scanner feed if you'd like to get a feel for the Police activity.  http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/18773/web/?rl=rr.  

I worked in Addison  and Farmers Branch for many years in the 90's and 2000's and the East/West commute on 635 sucked during rush-hour.  Not sure how it is today, but I suspect it's still not great.   Getting downtown is usually pretty quick down I30 or various side-streets.  Northbound on the tollway usually move fairly well in the morning but I hop off at Northwest highway and don't know what it's like up around 635/Addison.  I took that route a few times a decade or more ago and it seems move better once you turn Northbound but you drive more miles and pay the toll.

Our house is in what I refer to as the fringe of Lake Highlands.  We are off of Stults Road, which runs from Greenville Avenue to Forest Lane (where it then becomes TI Blvd).  We're coming up on 10 years there.


House was built in 1961, pier and beam foundation, approximately 1360 sq ft.  We paid $125K.  Big back yard with several mature trees, no HOA.




We looked around the Ferguson Rd area, and saw some decent places, but I'm glad we chose the part of Dallas that we did.  The neighborhood isn't perfect, but the location is great, and it will be the place we stay until our kids are grown.
 

I get that you're not concerned about schools right now, but FWIW we're also in the Richardson ISD.

OP...........IM sent.
Thx.

How's the Internet out in that area?  Work requires that I'm tethered to it quite a bit of the time.

Oh yeah.  I know that area.  My first IT job in the late 90s, building PCs and doing tiny LAN installs was with a company that was at Forest and Greenville.  I think there's a Tejano radio station in that office now.  Also had an apartment over on Markville.  Roommate and I, at the time, used to walk over to the Cheddar's for food and booze pretty much every night.

I actually bought a house off of Poetry/548 last March as well.  3 acres and a little bigger house (big family) and absolutely love it out here.   Quiet and can actually see the stars at night. Drive to Addison for work myself. Not horrible. About an hour in traffic. I looked at a house in carrolton that was 8 miles to work and the commute was literally only 15 minutes shorter.

 

I use a little wireless outfit called Skywave-Tx.  Get consistent speeds. 8 down 2 up for $75/mo.  Local ISP.  More reliable than my old DSL in Sanger.

 

Plano is where you want to be.

If you move to Dallas County, you'll pay annual property taxes on your car(s).

House search continues.  We've kinda "nope'd" out of the south and south-east of Dallas.  Some really nice, older houses and some really nice stuff that was gutted and redone by the flippers, but damn that commute would have been long. Looking more in these areas now:




Really, really sick of looking at houses.    So many variables.  Saw a really neat one yesterday, older home, had been expanded from a single story and the previous owner had pretty obviously been in the trades.  Hand carved door, bookshelves in the walls that swung out to reveal storage/secret passages, amazing vaulted ceilings...  It even had a tiny guest house in the back yard with a stove and bathroom and a kids treehouse with power.  Sadly it was 'hood adjacent, right near Skillman and Forest.

Back to perusing MLS!

We did biness with a repair shop on that intersection, First Choice. Did you know those folks??

Well, unless you are dead set on Dallas proper, I might suggest Wylie...its where we moved.

We looked at Richardson, McKinney, Plano, Frisco areas (my office is in Farmers Branch, but we didn't find anything over the west side of Dallas...)...we sort of stumbled onto Wylie...

We love it, kind of out in the boonies, less hectic/congested than Richardson/Plano/Frisco, low crime, and we found we got more bang for the buck as far as houses go...plus fantastic schools since we have a 6 year old (that was a major limiting factor for us, had to have very good schools...).

The drawback, since it is still somewhat a newer suburb, lots of new infrastructure, so taxes are relatively high (but still almost 1/2 what we paid in the Buffalo, NY area...).

The ride for me isn't bad to Farmers Branch.....I go 544/Plano Parkway to the Bush at Jupiter, and the Bush to Luna road, spits me out a mile from my office....45 minutes to an hour at worst...if its really good, and I catch the lights, I can do it an almost half an hour. The tolls kind of suck, but doing 75 to 635 sucks way worse in general....freakin' 75 is always a parking lot between 6:30 and 9:30.....

I would guess getting to Addison wouldn't be bad....

I would pass on the three areas un the top of your map. Wylie is another 10 15 min north on 78 and way better. Its growing fast though, not the quiet little town it was when we moved there 10 years ago.  But its way nicer than garland.

we just purchased a house in this area (area highlighted in the OP).  No complaints as far as neighborhood.  

Look at lakewood, lake highlands, casa linda, casa view, and forest hills area.  most of the places will be at the top of your range, if not pricier.  Look at Mesquite (75150, 75149 zip codes) for a little less expensive but still decent neighborhoods.  

I can recommend our realtor wholeheartedly and he does lots of sales in this area.

eta: just realized this thread was almost a month old.

Hah.  I bumped it a couple days ago.  I think we're just about settled on something with a view of Lake Ray Hubbard.  Quiet little subdivision, looks like a couple LEO types live in the neighborhood and leave their cruisers parked on the street (or they were banging someone in the neighborhood all three times we drove through) and the people waved to me and MrsCheShirt as we drove through.

Get a contract yet? I'm a Realtor that focuses on the Collin County area. Being a buyer involves a pretty unforgiving process in this market right now!

lewisville carrollton richardson little elm off the top of my head