Moving to Waco Tx in January...

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by blkgiraffe

La Vega and Connally are not country schools and you forgot AJ Moore.

Exactly. La Vega and Connally have pretty new school buildings. Connally HS was built as a new school not long ago. But the districts themselves are located in the poorer and more run down northern end of the Waco metro area.

[Cyborg13]

How is the aera near the Richland Mall? I am looking to move to Waco this summer and some of the housing I have looked at is near there...between Highway 6 and Valley Mills.

[texasdiver]

It's an average area. The apartments along Highway 6 and behind the mall look pretty seedy. The houses get nicer as you go towards the lake. The area you are talking about is about middle range for Waco. There are some much nicer and much worse neighborhoods.

Two questions:

1. Are you looking for a house or apartment?
2. Do you have school age kids?

If you have kids who will be attending public schools then you have a lot of other issues to deal with in terms of location. If not, then you have a lot more options.

[Cyborg13]

That's kind of what I figured, based on my uber-in depth realtor.com and google street view-based research.
1- House. 100k or under, the farther under the better, although I need something in a decent area, nothing ghetto.
2- Yes, but he is already there and in the Woodway district, so it's a non-issue. It's the reason I am moving there.

This area meets both of those needs, as far as affordability and proximity to the Woodway district. I will probably be working on Industrial so it will be close to that as well.

[texasdiver]

That area is basically what you are looking for then. We have several friends who live in that area with small pre-school age kids. It is perfectly fine. Various young teachers who teach in the Woodway area have bought houses around there due to the lower cost. If you look at a map I would say anything within the area bounded by Highway 6, Waco Drive, New Road, and Lake Waco will be perfectly acceptable (most of the 76710 zip code). There are also some nice areas on the other side of New Road all the way up to say MacArthur/34th street but it starts to get sketchier the further you go towards downtown unless you are right on the lake or right along Austin Avenue.

You might also look in the Hewitt area (76643 zip code). There are plenty of modest looking houses in that area as well. The listings basically start at around $100,000 but there are a lot in that price range. Everything is close in Waco. It would be no more than a 10 minute drive over to the Richmond Mall area from most of Hewitt.

[Cyborg13]

Thanks for the info, that pretty much makes my mind up. And by Industrial, I meant Imperial Dr. Not sure why I put Industrial.