Avon lake or Bay Village (Cleveland, Lorain: sales, real estate, new home)

[GoulashBrother]

I am moving to Ohio and have been looking at houses in Bay Village and Avon Lake. I know the taxes are a little higher in Bay Village and the homes are newer in Avon Lake. But...I like both communities. My main interest is good schools for my five year old and I need a house for about 250K to 275K. I am self employed and will be working out of my home. Which community should I buy in? Avon Lake or Bay Village. Can anyone give me some honest and precise pros and cons?

Thank You!!

[PhillytoCincy]

I have done research on the school systems for work, especially when I was in the Cleveland area for a month this past June. Bay Village seems to have a slightly better school system, but both communities are awesome. Right on the lake, nice beaches, great school systems, close to the city, and lots of good shopping nearby.

[chrisolsen]

You can't go wrong with either community. Bay has more charm, has better access to Huntington Beach, closer to Crocker Park in Westlake, a tad shorter commute to downtown, and has more of a quaint feeling to it. Avon Lake is a mixture of old and new, and has more of an eclectic feeling to it. I can send you a comprehensive XLS dataset prepared by the State regarding school test scores, rankings, etc.

[Peregrine]

There's really not much difference. Slightly (and I do mean slightly) lower taxes in Avon, but otherwise for schools and most other comparo's, they are both excellent.

Personally I would choose Bay if I had to decide between the two for three main reasons:

• Bay still has that small town feel that Avon is starting to lose with the big malls out there.
• Closer to the city (only a few exits closer, but still....)
• I have met the mayor of Bay a few times and she is an honest and excellent politician.

[missboots23]

Both are nice, I agree. But I think you should live in Avon Lake. It is continuing to grow, and is a great place to live. There is alot of newer and new construction. The school system gets very high ratings,the library received national recognition, the high school was renovated and expanded and is gorgeous. They have nice walking trails and a boat launch/park. Also a cute dog park! They have wineries as well. The Iron Chef's Michael Symon recently launched a new restaurant in Avon Lake. There is alot of continuous growth, and it is easy to get to the main highway. I have lived here my entire life and am relocating to another state, and I will truly miss Avon Lake.

[missboots23]

The person above me is referring to the "malls" in Avon, which is a city next to Avon Lake. The "malls" are actually a nice shopping center called Avon Commons. It is under expansion as well and is a great place. Oh and a great workout facility is in Avon, it's called EMH, and it is really easy to get to from Avon Lake, about 5-10 minutes.

[Peregrine]

The person above you is a bit anti-mall, sorry. Avon Lake used to be a sleepy cool little town and now it's becoming Strongsville/North Olmsted/Westlake/fill-in-the-bank.... "Oh, but we have a Starbucks now!" yay....

Move to Bay and you are still only 2 or 3 exits from that "mall" and Westlake's "mall". Best of both worlds. You get a quiet little quaint town with none of the traffic and bs that comes with living near a mall. How do you like the traffic out there when you get off your exit Ms Boots? Yea.... Reminds me of Detroit in Westlake... a nightmare of traffic.... In fact I was out there today. Got off at 611 which isn't even that close to the mall and traffic is so bad....

I can already hear people complaining because they moved out there to get away from sprawl and now they are going to be stuck in even more sprawl then what they left. It happened in Medina and Strongsville already.

The solution to our problems is not sprawl.

[KristenCook]

I think people are confusing Avon and Avon Lake; Avon used to be a sleepy little antique town and with an uprise of construction in the past 5-7 years (including the "mall", which is actually a shopping center called Avon Commons), it has definitely been put on the map more so than before. Avon Lake, however, is still a nice small town that I am very happy to call home. Aside from a new swimming pool, you won't find much construction going on in Avon Lake and we certainly don't have a Starbucks. What we do have are eclectic restaurants, a terrific waterfront, friendly neighbors, a top-rated school system, and a great mix of old and new homes. In my opinion, Bay Village is a little bit run down and in light of the news going around there last summer, I wouldn't let my children run around town on their own.

[rugercaptain]

I would also vote for Avon Lake. Taxes are not slightly lower than Bay's--they're significantly lower, at least for the bungalow-style home that I eventually purchased in AL. The same square footage (about 1700) would've cost me almost double the amount of annual real estate taxes in Bay vs. in AL ($2600 AL vs. $4900 Bay). I'm but minutes from Huntington Beach and the Metro Park in Bay, yet I can still enjoy the lower real estate taxes of AL--as well as the lower sales taxes of Lorain County (no "sin" tax here as in Cuyahoga County).

I'm not a "mall" person, either, and I try to avoid Avon Commons south of AL during peak shopping times. However, the one new development that I DO like in Avon is the Lake Erie Crushers and their new ballpark! It's great being just a ten-minute drive from a (non-affiliated) professional baseball team that charges reasonable parking and concession prices, wins games, and will probably make the playoffs in its first year. If we lived in Bay I guess it would take me fifteen to twenty minutes to get to the ballpark...

[jwhalun08]

Avon Lake = sprawl. Brand new, cheap sub-developments purchased by people with no ethics or sense of aesthetics. Strip malls and new pharmacies are always popping up for no reason, as well. You couldn't pay me to live there.

Given its more well-established history, Bay Village has a lot of potential. But that's all it is. If it followed Rocky River or Coventry's lead, it could really be something unique--something with character. As it stands, it and the entire area (Avon Lake included) are defined by big box stores and mindless consumerism. Besides the lake, there's really nothing unique about it; there's literally nothing to do--which is typical of most suburbs. As far as what you get for the extra money (the main difference between BV and AL is taxes), you can't go wrong with Bay. Bay High School, for example, has been consistently ranked among U.S. News and World Report's "Top 100 High Schools in the Nation." I'd go with one of the cities I mentioned previously (Rocky River or Coventry), but if you're set on BV/AL, I'd go with Bay Village.