Moving to Norristown, PA area -- help me figure this out!

January 18, 2016 10:51 AM

I have an interview in Norristown, PA later this week. I currently live in Oregon. Help me figure out if this would be a good move, and if so, where to live.

We're looking to leave Oregon for a variety of reasons: weather sucks here, we have lots of friends/family in the mid-Atlantic, etc. This area west of Philly seems to be kind of ideal, due to reasonable housing costs, decent schools, and availability of rural-ish/small town living.

I have a son who will be entering kindergarten next year, so schools are a top priority. Norristown schools don't look great, but it looks like there are good schools nearby -- Phoenixville, Schwenksville, etc. Would these be reasonable places to live when one works in Norristown? Are there other places that I should be looking at?

Max house cost is around $250K, which is why I think it looks like our best bets are west/north of Norristown -- it looks like housing gets more expensive to the south.

Space/privacy is also desirable, as I'm married to someone who hates suburbs, so something more rural/small town would be good. He's also a carpenter, so we need a large garage/workshop -- that's not negotiable. He also likes old, interesting houses -- ranch houses and newer construction is generally going to be a non-starter.

All I care about is not having a terrible commute. I really would love to live somewhere where I don't have to get in the car for every little thing -- is there some magical place that has a country feel but is walking distance to groceries, restaurants, etc?

posted by rabbitrabbit to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

I was born in Philly, but I grew up in Audubon, very close to Norristown. I haven't lived in the Philly area since the mid '00s, but one thing I can say for sure is that the weather isn't likely to be a significant upgrade from the PNW, so it's odd to see that as a reason for leaving.

Anyway, there are a lot of good school districts in the area, but hitting the intersection of good schools, your housing requirements, and your $250k mortgage limit might be challenging. Here is a listing of the best-ranked in PA. A lot of the top 25 are within manageable distance from the Norristown area, but a lot of the ones at the top (Tred-East, Radnor) are in very expensive areas, and won't give you much in the way of "small town" "rural" living. I went to Methacton (37 on the list) and when I grew up there you could get farther out into the Worcester area and find some older homes, but there was still a suburban feel to it. Same goes for the North Penn area (21 on the list.)

Periomen Valley (43) might be worth a look -- the Skippack area was pretty under-developed and rural-ish when I lived nearby, but I'm not sure what it's like now. There might also be parts in the northern areas of Upper Dublin SD (16) where you can find what you're looking for.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:03 PM on January 18, 2016

I currently live in Philly, and worked in the suburbs out in Conshohocken/Plymouth Meeting area. Look at Plymouth meeting (28 on the list provided by Tonycpsu) or Springfield/Media. Both are relatively close to Norristown, but with much better school districts.

However - both are pretty strongly suburbia. Springfield/Media area puts you in Rosetree school district (#24 on the list above). Main Street Media has a small town feel ( a la Gilmore Girls), but you may run into budgetary issues there as well. It's about a half hour from Media to Norristown (assuming the blue route [476] isn't FUBAR on that given day).

Honestly - Plymouth Meeting is probably your best bet, there are some neighborhoods that are relatively isolated, decent school system, and you can find some neat older houses as fixer uppers in your price range - but you are going to live in Suburbia if you want to live in a nice area, with a decent school district, that is a commutable distance from Norristown.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 1:40 PM on January 18, 2016

Hi there - we lived for awhile previously in Doylestown, PA and drove through or near Norristown a bunch. It was about 40 minutes from us. Have you ever visited that area? Because personally I hated it around there. It's also probably more expensive for housing then you want and there will be lots of driving around to get things like groceries. Feel free to memail me if you have specific questions. We actually moved from Pennsylvania to Oregon last year.

Also agree with Tony that you won't find better weather in Pennsylvania over Oregon - their bad winters was part of the reason we left. I'm assuming you are somewhere like Portland now but could be wrong.
posted by FireFountain at 7:22 PM on January 18, 2016

Response by poster: OK, guess I shouldn't have glossed over the weather thing. My spouse works outside, and working in cold dry weather is wayyyyy preferable to being constantly wet like he is here. We grew up in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast, we know what the winters are like there.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:10 PM on January 18, 2016

Walkability is the easiest criteria to drop. A house on enough land not to feel suburban and facilitate carpentry that is also walkable to a lot of amenities is going to be 3x or more your budget or have bad public schools.

That's a land of long commutes, or, put another way, people benchmark by the time and discomfort of the bus / train / walk combo they'd face to get to center city Philly in rush hour and will gladly do that for the money or do 20 minutes longer if it is in the comfort of their car. You will meet plenty of people who now or recently commuted to Manhattan! So really define your commute objectives liberally for best odds.
posted by MattD at 2:04 AM on January 19, 2016

If you're going to move to that area, get used to going by car. When I lived there, it felt like nearly everything was 30 minutes away by car. There are a good amount of major roads, but they'll all get clogged at pretty predictable hours, so you'll likely get familiar with back roads. Good school districts and $250k mortgage limits are pretty mutually exclusive, I think. The best way to deal with that is to get a real fixer-upper. That seems to dovetail with your spouse's desires, so if you go that route you'll want something you can refurbish; hopefully you're already aware of the tradeoffs that entails.

Also, I hope you like suburbia; Norristown and the surrounding area, to me, exemplify pretty much everything that's wrong with suburbia. Though I guess you could do worse in PA, because at least you have access to SEPTA, there. That rural-ish/small town living you want means cars, or lots of miles on your bike. By the way, PA is not very bike friendly outside of Philly. It can be done, but it's certainly less hospitable than OR/WA.

*I* don't think it would be a good move, but I don't want the same things you want. Strongly suggest you spend a few days in the area to evaluate that for yourself.
posted by Strudel at 10:13 AM on January 19, 2016