BG I guess we have different styles. When I have clients that give fairly specific requirements I feel very uncomfortable making recommendations of different areas that the client is not familiar with. To me that becomes a risk. This is a one time shot and I don’t see this particular poster in a position to move twice if the area they moved into is not one which really fit their needs. This poster has posted here for awhile and there is absolutely nothing that I gather from her posts such that I would recommend a more “urban” area.
It may be your experience that neighborhoods with zillions of young kids are a cesspool of noise, litter, etc… However my job is to listen to what clients want and try to find what they want. If there are locations that happen to coincide with the clients wants and needs, I feel comfortable making them in a more casual manner. I mention it once, and that is it. I feel that listening to them and working towards their destination/goals is more important then finding an alternative that in MY mind may work for them.
Yes my wife works full time. She has two small businesses. At the end of each day we are exhausted and we would not trade a cesspool neighborhood full of kids for nice “urban home” (which by the way we own one in talmadge and moved out of if FOR our kids) for the world.
Of all of the young families I have helped find homes for in Carmel Valley, or 4S or PQ or Sabre Springs, or RB or wherever, if I would have pushed something more urban that was not filled with kids, they would have probably dropped me as their agent.
Of course you are simply trying to provide alternatives but… my strategy would simply be to say okay here is what is available in the neighborhoods you REALLY want to be in. If you want the 350k home then make DAMN WELL SURE you want to live in and raise the kids in that area. Go research it, perhaps rent in it a year, then call me back.
To me plunking down your nut in a neighborhood you have never lived in, and are not that familiar with other then what people on an internet posting board tell you is not wise.
