need Plano, Texas info

[disneyred]

Hi,
A friend of mine just informed me last night that he had a chance to
relocate to Plano , Texas... wow... that is big news (for me!)

We started to look onto the web for more info on this area .. saw their Plano main? website.... but then got very few info...so of course, my best advice was.. let me ask the DISers... they know everything !!
So keep in mind, I do not know this area.. I am just passing on these questions, hoping someone can offer any insight .. TIA..

1. good place for elementary and high schools around ?
2. public transit .. is this available ... or does everyone drive everywhere
3. are they "good" and "bad" areas?
4. real estate .. how is housing market ... affordable ??
5. last but not least for now, any link to print out map of the plano area ??

any neighboring areas of Plano better to settle in ??

TIA again !

 

[Queen Quinnella]

Plano is just north of Dallas. It has pretty decent schools. Houses are VERY expensive. Drive everywhere. I think most of Plano is "good". He might also want to check out McKinney, Allen, Garland, & Richardson. These are all surrounding towns.

 

[disneyred]

Plano is just north of Dallas. It has pretty decent schools. Houses are VERY expensive. Drive everywhere. I think most of Plano is "good". He might also want to check out McKinney, Allen, Garland, & Richardson. These are all surrounding towns.

thanks for these areas... oh boy, wait till I tell him about housing...
he "heard" housing was affordable.

 

[rpbear]

Depending on where he is from, he might consider housing affordable. If he lives around the Los Angeles area, homes in Plano are affordable, in the Dallas/Ft. Worth homes in Plano tend to have some neighborhoods that price per square foot is higher then average.

http://www.pisd.edu/ This website will give him more information about schools and how they do on testing.

I think most parts of Plano are considered good.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I just moved here from Missouri and I live in Flower Mound. Housing is the same perhaps a bit more expensive depending on the area you want to live.
It is really location, location, location.

If you are considering Plano I would check out Frisco. That has all the lastest and greatest malls and stores.

As far as transportation? No public, you sit in traffic. Doesn't matter where you move.
Frisco and Plano are more congested. Plano especially. Everything is almost built there.

 

[missypie]

Plano is just north of Dallas. It has pretty decent schools. Houses are VERY expensive. Drive everywhere. I think most of Plano is "good". He might also want to check out McKinney, Allen, Garland, & Richardson. These are all surrounding towns.

Compared to most of the rest of the country, housing in Plano is NOT expensive. It may be expensive compared to the rest of the Dallas area, but if you were relocating from, say Manhattan, San Francisco or LA, you would think you had gone to heaven.

Try Frisco...good schools, lots of retail and restaurants, not as built up.

 

[Kermit]

I'm moving to Plano soon. The movers just came and loaded my stuff onto their truck today. DH is already there, and I'll be getting there in about 10 days. We're originally from the Dallas area, but not that side of Dallas.

I think that the housing there is very affordable. There may be some neighborhoods where the housing is more expensive than others, but in general, prices are good. We're going to live in an apartment for about 6 months before we buy. We want to make sure we make a good decision about which neighborhood we want to live in.

 

[JennaTX]

All four of my nieces/nephews graduated from Plano schools in the last 2-6 years and they had a great education, with really great schools. Plano may be more expensive than other areas of Dallas, but you are paying for being out in the 'burbs (just like we do here in Houston). I really like that area of Dallas because they have good schools, nice neighborhoods, and also any shopping that you would like is close to you.

It will all depend where you are moving from whether the cost of housing seems expensive, the commute is long , how the schools are, etc.

 

[disneyred]

wow... great info so far.. i will pass it along... these are the types
of insight which I could never find on any website.

 

[malibuconlee]

We lived in the North Dallas area for several years. He could work in Plano and live in lots of different areas.

When we bought a house there we got a Dallas area map. Set a compass for the map's equivelent of 10 miles. We didn't want a long commute (we worked together). We ended up buying a house in an older neighborhood. For $25,000 to $35,000 more we could have had a new house in The Colony, but we didn't want the commute. It took us less than 10 minutes to get to work at the worst of times. Didn't cross any major highways, it was great!!

Go to Realtor.com and you can look at different properties in the area and get an idea on housing prices.

There is a lot to do in the Dallas area. I miss it. Miss doing things like Pocket Sandwich Theater, looking at Christmas lights in Highland Park, and other neighborhoods, being 15 minutes away from several good malls, being able to go out dancing, Dallas Summer Musicas (we got cheap seat tickets for about $10/per person/per show).

Frisco is a rapidly growing area. They've opened two brand new high schools in the last 5 years.

The one thing we did find as adults in our 20's without kids... Dallas is very transient. People move in, people move out, the people we hung out with when we first moved there were not the same as when we left.

But I'd move back.

 

[disneyred]

We lived in the North Dallas area for several years. He could work in Plano and live in lots of different areas.

When we bought a house there we got a Dallas area map. Set a compass for the map's equivelent of 10 miles. We didn't want a long commute (we worked together). We ended up buying a house in an older neighborhood. For $25,000 to $35,000 more we could have had a new house in The Colony, but we didn't want the commute. It took us less than 10 minutes to get to work at the worst of times. Didn't cross any major highways, it was great!!

Go to Realtor.com and you can look at different properties in the area and get an idea on housing prices.

There is a lot to do in the Dallas area. I miss it. Miss doing things like Pocket Sandwich Theater, looking at Christmas lights in Highland Park, and other neighborhoods, being 15 minutes away from several good malls, being able to go out dancing, Dallas Summer Musicas (we got cheap seat tickets for about $10/per person/per show).

Frisco is a rapidly growing area. They've opened two brand new high schools in the last 5 years.

The one thing we did find as adults in our 20's without kids... Dallas is very transient. People move in, people move out, the people we hung out with when we first moved there were not the same as when we left.

But I'd move back.

wow... this is great info...... does that mean depending on where you live...
the kids have to go to the school zoned in that area ??

 

[malibuconlee]

We don't have kids, so I don't know if Texas has open enrollment or not. I have heard that a lot of people that live in Dallas proper send their kids to private school.

Not to freak anyone out, but did anyone see the MTV special with Serena Altchul a few years ago? She rode around with some kids from Plano (not sure if they were high school or right out) while they did drugs in gas station bathrooms.

 

[disneyred]

Are there any type of public transportation for this area ??

thanks.

 

[malibuconlee]

They have been expanding DART over the last few years (we moved almost three years ago). I never did take it. I think it's more geared for downtown. I do have friends that used to take it in to work in downtown, can't remember why they stopped.

DART

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

They have expanded the DART rail system up to Plano, but there is no place to park your car! I told DH I would just go ahead and drive to work if all the parking at the train station was full! Silly. This was JUST on the news within the past 3 or 4 days.

I would imagine the DART buses run up there but I couldn't swear to it.

Plano is more expensive than the surrounding areas. The schools are good for the most part, but they are highly competitive in the upper grades. They had a severe heroin problem in the high schools a few years back but I haven't heard anything like that recently. The west side of Plano is newer and nicer, more affluent. The east side of Plano is older, less affluent, more questionable in terms of crime, etc.

Good luck with the relocation!

 

[disneyred]

oh.
I guess most families have at least 1 car then.... since you cannot rely
on public transit.... I know in some other cities... public transit is heavily used ... does not seem that its the case here.

 

[malibuconlee]

The west side of Plano is newer and nicer, more affluent. The east side of Plano is older, less affluent, more questionable in terms of crime, etc.

Good luck with the relocation!

Aren't there East Plano and West Plano high schools? I seem to remember that they even made the 99.5 radio station morning show talking about the school rivalry and a football game.

 

[malibuconlee]

oh.
I guess most families have at least 1 car then.... since you cannot rely
on public transit.... I know in some other cities... public transit is heavily used ... does not seem that its the case here.

Dallas is definitely a "car" city. I would say most people have one car per adult in the family.

If I remember correctly the DFW metroplex is something like 50 miles long and 75miles wide when you go from the far north to far south suburbs and the western Ft. Worth burbs to the eastern Dallas suburbs.

 

[missypie]

If schools are important to you, make sure you confirm exactly what schools your neighborhood feeds into...they may not be the closest ones. I don't know if it's still the case, but a few years ago it made the news that some of the neighborhood schools were way over crowded, so kids who lived close by had to go to schools farther away.

Plano is suburbia with a capital S. Subdivision after subdivsion, strip center after strip center, restaurant row after resturant row, apartment complex after apartment complex. If that doesn't appeal to you, try some of the other Collin Co. communities such as McKinney, Allen or Frisco.

(We were in Plano last Saturday for a gymnastics meet...at the gym where Carly Patterson, Holly Vise and Nastia Liukin train. Normal gym in a strip center, but it was still pretty cool to think that the floor on which my DD was competing was the floor where Carly practiced!)

 

[malibuconlee]

Willow Bend in Plano HOuse

Here you go, tell your friend he could live here. Yep, there are ***really*** nice areas of Plano and some just regular areas too. I think a couple of the local sports stars live in this development.