Working from home - where to raise my family around DFW? (Dallas: for sale, to rent)

[Peachtree36]

Hi all, we are seeking advice on where in the DFW area to relocate our family. My husband is considering a job offer to work from home as part of a Dallas-based team. His physical presence would rarely, if ever, be required so travel and commute times are not an issue. In fact, we could stay in Los Angeles, where we reside currently, but we have no hope of ever affording a house out here. Additionally, we are living in a small 2 BR condo with two small children so we do need to move -somewhere- if he takes this job, no matter what, as the current set-up would not allow for a sane home office.

We took a trip to Dallas this summer while he initiated a job search there and gathered some nice impressions. We took a rambling tour through the northern suburbs and through some accidental turns ended up in Richardson near Waterview and Arapaho and we were in awe; we said, "this is IT!" Small old houses lovingly kept and streets that invite community cohesiveness... this is the vision we hold other things up to, I suppose.

Richardson was our top choice but it seems to be just out of our budget. We are looking to rent a house for a year before buying and hope to find something for under $1400.00 per month. Our house budget is about $200K when we start shopping to buy. We'll need at least a 3BR for the home office, but mostly we're craving a garage and yard. We welcome a fixer-upper, as our whole family loves working with hammers and nails. I school the kids at home and we are big on being outside, walking to the basic places like the grocery store, post-office, or library, and connecting with the people around us.

We're looking for safe, old, pretty streets but we had ruled out affordability after months of research on this forum and had set our relocation dream on the shelf when this job prospect came along. Now it seems that there could be an affordable version of what we found in Richardson, but maybe on the outskirts of the DFW metroplex. Do you have any suggestions on small (xurbs?) towns we might find within a two hour drive of the center of Dallas that might offer us this kind of lifestyle? It would be impossible to cover all directions in another scouting trip...we just don't know where to begin. We did drive through Justin on our last trip and it looked neat but maybe a little too small and remote. We started thinking about Denton but are discouraged by several posts claiming it is not very family-friendly.

So that is my dilemma in a nutshell; we have a small budget and choices too numerous to investigate by car. Any input will be appreciated. Thank you!

[rxmom03]

Check out Arlington, TX, especially the Woodland West neighborhood. The prices, especially for a fixer-upper should be in your budget and it's a really nice (old) neighborhood. I know you said you home school, but if you ever decide to send your kids to public school both Duff Elementary and Bailey Jr High are rated highly. At the intersection of Bowen and Park Row (and a couple of blocks out) are grocery stores, restaurants, a post office and library on the NW corner, a car repair shop, pet shop plus other miscellaneous shops . If you are good with walking a few blocks there are lots of houses surrounding that area.

You would be just a few minutes from I-30 and could head into Dallas from there. Oh, also there is a really nice park and recreation center (Dottie Lynn Recreation center) near the elementary school.

Good luck on finding a place!

[tcualum]

I second rxmom03's suggestion. There's also a park (Bicentennial Park) and city pool (Woodland West) in that area along with a thriving Nextdoor community. There's also a three other great parks within a short drive of the Woodland West neighborhood. One of them has nature trail and disc gold course (Veterans Park) , another has a fishing pond (Gardens Park) and the third (Randoll Mill Park) has a really cool handicapped accessible playground. There's also a small but excellent YMCA branch nearby that offers a great father/child program that includes campouts, a rocket shoot, pinewood derby, etc. My husband has made lots of friends through the program. If you plug into the community around there it really will feel like a small town in the middle of a big city. I often run into people I know from the YMCA, kids' schools, and my former moms' group when I'm out shopping or running errands.

[ChristieP]

See My comment on your other post: Rockwall, or Forney.

[Katana49]

Normally the idea of renting for a year would be sound advice while you decide exactly where in this large metroplex you'd like to put down roots and buy a home, but the fact of the matter is that we are in an appreciating market. If your budget is $200k, you'd be wise to buy as soon as possible, because homes in your budget are hotly contested and sell immediately.

I would do more research with your house hunting and make plans to pull the trigger before spring, when the market gets even hotter. We have multiple posters here who have come on this board and say they were waiting to buy, and then got priced out of where they wanted to purchase because they never pulled the trigger. Now they are still waiting, because they don't want to spend $400k for what they could have purchased for $300k just a couple years ago, and they're waiting for a huge market reversal which just isn't going to happen.

Worst case scenario... you buy a home and live in it for a few years and find out that it's not really the area you want to be in. At least you'll have earned some price appreciation and can put it towards a home in an area you'd like to live in, rather than just having your money go towards rent and doing nothing for you.

[UnfairPark]

With no commute or schooling issues, you should do fine with $200k for a spacious and solid fixer upper in DFW.

Richardson is fantastic but due to their central location and good schools, it’s in high demand. You don’t need to pay a premium for that. Pick something off The beaten path and you’ll do fine. As you plan to rent first, you’ll have plenty of time to explore areas to narrow down your search. I would look as far as Farmersville, Denton, Weatherford etc.

[justsomeguy]

Wylie....?

[Peachtree36]

Wow, thank you for this information! Katana49, I am grateful for this point of view, as your worst case scenario doesn't sound that bad, as we like the idea of earning price appreciation rather than throwing money away on rent. And rxmom03 and tcualum, thank you both for the details about Woodland West in Arlington. I never would have guessed that a small-town-feeling place could be found in a big city with a bit of a rough reputation like Arlington, but that is what I love about this forum. We are adding this community to the list to keep an eye on, as there are a couple of houses in our price range for sale there even now. I like the idea of having that many parks around with so many great activities. And I was amazed at the scores on Duff Elementary and Bailey. Even though we aren't currently using public schools, the scores speak well of the neighborhood and they definitely factor into every place we look at. So Arlington and Rockwall (thank you too ChristieP and UnfairPark) are up there now as places off the beaten path we would not have known about but are now researching, and I'll just have to keep checking on Wylie (from justsomeguy) too. Thank you all for your help!

[BigDGeek]

You could check out some of the smaller suburbs of Fort Worth like Azle, Burleson, Mansfield, Roanoke, etc. Or the HEB area between Fort Worth & Dallas. Or Fort Worth itself.


I live in southwest Richardson and love it for the reasons you described, but a $200k budget is practically ancient history around here for a nice 3-2. I got in for less than that, but that was during the housing crash. Prices here bottomed out 8 years ago and have skyrocketed since. The only way you'd get a 3-2 in the Heights area (basically everything south of Arapaho and east of Waterview) or The Reservation is if you found a house in such poor shape that it'd be more likely that Fairview or Shaddock & Caldwell would scrape it off the plot.