Yet another relo (St. Louis, Washington, Craig: rentals, condos, crime)

[Back2Midwest]

So I have an offer from a pharma company located very close to downtown - near the river. The salary is very generous, allowing my Wife and I to afford to buy a house in a nice neighborhood eventually.

Some background: I'm from the midwest, she's from LA. We've both lived all over the place so we know what we're "getting into". We have two small children - 3 yrs old and 5 mo. old. We are leaning towards living in the more central part of the city and putting our kids in private school. We're basically Democrats, she's liberal I'm a "blue dog". We like to have a university close by as we're both research oriented people (Ph.D.s). We're a mixed race couple - she is Asian and I'm White. (Not that that matters a whole lot)

I think we will rent the first year to get a feel for the area. The questions I have are:

1) What is a nice place to rent a 4 bedroom house? We've seen a lot of neighborhoods tossed about and we kinda like the Tower Grove area and Lafayette Park. I'd like a place where I won't worry about safety. We lived in a marginal neighborhood in Miami and I don't want to do that again. I'd like safe, convenient, urban living in an area that has lots of kids running around.

A side note: we'll be out for a search trip so if we can narrow it down to 3 or 4 neighborhoods it would be really helpful for our search.

2) Private schools: we are not religious, but would send the kids to Catholic/Lutheran/Jewish schools as long as they don't force religion classes on the students. Is this possible? Finding a "Church School" that just teaches non-bible study topics? Also what is the tuition range for both religious and secular schools?

Lots of great info here - thanks to all the past posters for taking the time to write.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

Tower Grove and Lafayette have beautiful homes. The Central West End is fine as well. Lafayette Park tends to cost more than some areas. I would suggest a private school. I have heard they start as low as $3000 a year, with discounts for multiple children. Central West End would probably be best for a liberal, mixed-race couple (I would think most areas of the city it wouldn't be a problem, though). And Wash. U. isn't far away.

I hope I didn't confuse you more. Sorry.

Welcome to Missouri! I'm sure someone else can help you more.

What's your budget? That would help.

[stepka]

Ditto on the neighborhood suggestions. I'm not sure you'll find a private school like what you're looking for though--I've been doing some research for a job hunt, and all the religious ones like to teach their own brand of religion, even if the kids don't come from that background. I've heard a lot of good things about New City School though and it's over by Washington University, which has great neighborhoods around it. I've also heard great things about St. Michael School (Catholic) and The Wilson School (not religious that I can tell), also by WU. I'll be back with some private school links.

[stepka]

Here's a link to independent private schools: St. Louis Independent Schools St. Louis Missouri Private Schools Saint Louis Private Schools Missouri Independent Schools Saint Louis Independent Schools Missouri (http://www.independentschools.org/member/elem.html - broken link) And a link to the elementary schools listed with the St. Louis Archdiocese: Catholic Education (http://www.archstl.org/education/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=252 - broken link) Another thing I've found is really handy is mapquest. You just type in "parochial schools" or "private schools" along with the zip code of the area you'll be relocating to, and you'll get a long list of schools starting with the ones closest to home, and some have website links. I've been using that a lot lately in my job hunt.

[aragx6]

If you don't want a transitional neighborhood I would look only at Tower Grove South (also called Heights) and not east or north of the park. It's a nice area, but has some gentrification left to go through.

4 bedroom rentals can be hard to find in the city because most of the bigger homes are owner occupied, but checking out Craigslist it looked like there were a few very nice options in Tower Grove. Central West End may also be a possibility for you - this place looks extraordinary (3-4 bedroom Luxury Home in the Central West End (http://stlouis.craigslist.org/apa/706875195.html - broken link)) Obviously don't know what your budget is though ...

[Back2Midwest]

Thanks for the quick replies! My budget for rent is probably up to $2000/mo although I'd like to stay well below that. We'll buy later so the more we can save the better.

I did see that Craig's List post - looks really nice. It'll probably be gone by the time we get out there but thats probably about what we're looking for. We can do 3 br, but we will be having guests fairly frequently so an extra bedroom is really a bonus.

I'm OK if there is gentrification going on. In the opening post I mention that we don't want transitional but I probably meant we don't want to be on the edge of a crime ridden area. I'm OK with on-going gentrification. In Miami we lived in Coconut Grove and on one side of our road we had $500000 condos and on the other was blight. My bike was stored in a tiny hidden nook in the back yard and was stolen in the first week of living there. The cops that helped me look for it one night told me NEVER walk/drive through the neighborhood behind our house - people have been dragged out of their cars and beaten. Maybe they were just trying to scare me but it was not a nice place to live.

One more question geared toward buying in the same areas - is the gentrification stopping? Are the prices dropping much? There is a chance we will buy right away if the relo package includes covering closing costs and I would like to find a fixer-upper and do it the way we want. I just don't want to buy into a market that is dying out.

[deb1305]

Hey I am a Realtor...not soliciting my mom is a private school principal. I was raised in the catholic school system. I know almost all of the private schools around, I was a kindergarten teacher years ago. I am moving(building a home) I am changing my kids to a GREAT public school in the Rockwood school district. The catholic/private schools are good!! Please feel free to contact me