Livonia real estate
  Livonia MI

Livonia, Michigan 
          
I lived in Livonia for over twenty years before I moved out to a lake house.  I believe it is a fantastic city.  Whether you are looking for Livonia real estate, or just checking out Wayne County real estate you will find quite a few great cities like Northville, Plymouth, and Canton. I believe it is a great city.  It is centrally located in the Metro Detroit area.  Close to downtown, close to the airport, and highways all around so you can get anywhere in the area.   It's about 20 minutes to the airport, to downtown, or to Ann Arbor. 

If you are relocating to Michigan, Livonia is a city you might want to check out.  Livonia is a city that only has what I call "random crime or occasional crime acts".  You won't get mugged walking down the street.  You can safely walk around at night.  If a car gets broken into it is usually a neighborhood kid that is acting up.  Murders and robberies are rare.   It is a safe city with a great police force.

In the past Livonia has been recognized by the FBI as the 7th Safest City in the Country. It has also been named the 2nd Best Kid Friendly Place in the Nation by Population Connection. The City of Livonia has also been rated the 2nd Least Economic Stressful by the City American City Business Journals . 

                                   Livonia relocation

Livonia, MI is approximately 35.7 square miles on the western side of Detroit, in Wayne County, MI.  Livonia is about 15 miles from the Downtown Detroit.  The city's boundaries are Inkster Road on the east, Eight Mile Road on the north, Eckles Road and Haggerty Road on the west and Joy Road on the south.  It is bordered to the east by the city of Redford.  And bordered to the west by Northville and Plymouth.  Farmington Hills  and Novi are on the Northern border of Livonia.  The city enjoys accessibility to many highways. The City?s strategic location offers easy east-west access via the Jeffries Expressway (I-96) and north-south transportation on the I-275 expressway. Major highways and interstates fan out in every direction providing convenient drive times to Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Lansing.

Livonia real estate 

Livonia Michigan homes are a mixture of colonial, split level, cape code, bungalow, and ranch style homes built primarily in the 1950-60's., When the city first started I would have said it was a starter community.  The early homes in the community were brick ranches.  There are many Livonia subdivisions that are street after street of 900 - 1500 square foot brick ranches. 

 A 3 bedroom brick ranch with a basement and garage  is very easy to find here. Prices for the homes in the city in 2013 range from $150,000 to over $400,000 whereas in 2009 when the market dipped it was  $100,000 - $300,000. We also have some newer brick colonial homes and subdivisions that range up to $500,000 range.  For people looking to relocate to Michigan, Livonia has a wide variety of beautiful homes and nice neighborhoods.

Best realtors in Livonia MI 

Shopping
Livonia has no central downtown but it has every imaginable store around.  Home Depot, Sears, Walmart, Meijers, and Target. The city boasts two large malls Laurel Park and Livonia Mall and various shopping centers to suit your every need.   There are many small strip malls with small mom and pop stores, video stores, grocery stores, hardware stores, and pharmacies.  You can find what you need at a store with in 5 or 10 minutes of your home. 

When researching where to live you will find that we have a wide demographic base.  Livonia Michigan has many ethnic stores that cater food that people love from their homeland and they are used to buying.  The ones that I know of off the top of my head are Italian Bakeries, a Greek Bakery, a Japanese grocery store.  I am sure that there are many others that are in one of the many little strip shopping center throughout the  city.

Parks and recreation
Livonia, Michigan has over 1800 acres of park land. The city has 46 developed municipal parks, 3 city owned and operated golf courses, twenty-two playgrounds, forty-two baseball diamonds, thirty-three tennis courts, 15 Miles of Nature & Ski Trails, a walking path,4 Bocci Ball Courts,  twenty-seven soccer fields, 2 Outdoor Swimming Pools, and 3 Natural Outdoor Ice rinks

The city also owns two indoor ice arenas.  Hines Drive runs through the city with many parks, Newburgh Lake (not a swimming lake) and the Rouge River.  Livonia offers many recreational opportunities including a a YMCA and a new recreational center.   Livonia's state of the art Community Recreation Center is a 130,000 square-foot facility with two pools, four gyms, gymnastics center, climbing wall, indoor soft playground and fitness center with indoor track. Outside features at this new facility include four soccer fields, in-lined skate rink, skateboard park, sand volleyball courts and water spray ground. There are many swim clubs located throughout the city.

Livonia City Parks

Hospitals
Medical care is close by also St. Mary's Hospital is located right in Livonia on 5 mile Rd.  If you don't want to use St. Mary's there are several hospitals within 10 to 20 minutes away.  Many doctors, and dentist make Livonia home making it easy for you to locate a family practitioner close by.

The city has good police force and good firemen that have worked hard to keep Livonia ranked in the top of the nation's safest cities. 

As the City's motto proclaims, "People Come First".  With a population of over 100,000, Livonia is the 2nd Largest City in Wayne County , the 8th Largest City in Michigan and the 242nd Largest City in the United States. At $5.121 billion, Livonia has the 3rd highest S.E.V.(State Equalized Value) in the State. At the same time the city's property tax rate is the lowest tax rate among cities in Wayne County, at $34.57 per $1,000 taxable value. 

Livonia Schools
The school board is always pro-active and is constantly working hard to keep the schools financially strong and keep improving the schools for the students.  The teachers are proud to teach here and work hard to improve each students education.  The sports are highly competitive too. 

The city's students benefit from two very good public school systems. Livonia Public Schools and the Clarenceville School District.  The majority of Livonia residents go to Livonia Public Schools.  Livonia also has 6 parochial elementary schools, and 1 parochial senior high school. At the college level Madonna University and Schoolcraft Community College are located in the city. Livonia has three municipal libraries spread out through the city. 

Livonia has a strong commercial tax base with over 5,000 businesses in the city. Livonia's commercial center is concentrated in a six square mile corridor around I-96.  Major local employers include Ford Motor Company, General Motors, United Parcel Services and St. Mary Mercy Hospital. 

 One of best features of the city is it's location. The city is centrally located within the Metro Detroit suburbs to many main areas.  It is 20 minutes down Middlebelt Road to the airport for people who travel a lot.  20 minutes to downtown Detroit via I-96.   20 minutes to Ann Arbor via M-14 and about 20 minutes to the City of Southfield.  With I-96, Telegraph, and I-275 you can get anywhere in the Metro Detroit area quickly.  That makes Livonia a desirable city when you put up your home for sale.

I believe the city services are great.  They constantly constanly repaving and patching the roads.  You can just rake your leaves into the street in the fall and the city will pick them up.  The court system allows minor offenders to do community service and they do many clean up projects around the city weekly.

One of its first settlers was Daniel Blue, from Oneida, New York, who located his claim here in 1832.  Livonia Township was erected in 1834, and was named for other early settlers who came here from the Livonia, New York, area (the name originated as a province in western Russia).

Given a post office as Livonia on May 7, 1834, with James Gunning as its first postmaster.  The office was transferred to and renamed Plank Road on May 20, 1851.  The village was platted and recorded as Livonia Michigan on May 20k, 1836.  The Livonia post office was re-established on January 30, 1872, closed on September 16, 1906, restored as a branch of the Detroit post office in 1952, and was made an independent office again on April 1, 1954. 

The boundaries of the City of Livonia, located in northwest Wayne County, were set in 1835 as Livonia Township. The boundaries of Livonia Township were set during an act of territorial legislature in 1835, and the area became home to dairy farms and fruit orchards.   For the first 100 years Livonia was largely agricultural, but in the late 1940s the area took a major step toward commerce and industry when General Motors Corporation built an automatic transmission plant, soon to be followed by a Ford Motor Company parts depot. In 1950, the residents voted to become a city, and the entire Township (36 square miles) was incorporated as a city. Livonia has held on to much of its heritage through historic preservation and the acquisition and development of over 1,800 acres of park land and open space. Greenmead Historical Village is a 103-acre farm/museum of Livonia's history at the corner of Eight Mile and Newburgh Roads. The city's current population is 100,427 (SEMCOG estimate, January 2002), ranking it fifth in the seven-county Southeast Michigan region.