Moving From FL to BOS...NEED HELP, LOTS of QUESTIONS!

[Cliff Clavin]

That's a really nice hotel in an area that has seen a lot of developement in the past 10 years, with much more to come.

Look into the Park Lane Seaport apartments. They're right next to the hotel and look very nice.

[Cantabridgienne]

South Boston would be a great place to live if you were going to work over by the Waterfront.

[ogre]

If you want to avoid college kids, you probably want to avoid the Fenway area, which was suggested above. It's my understanding that some streets in the Fenway are quiet enough, but you've really got to know that area street by street better than I do in order to avoid finding yourself surrounded by noisy undergrads.

That housing budget you're talking about should give you some good options. Some of this depends on how urban, or not, you'd like your neighborhood to be, and how long a commute you can handle. If you can handle an urban setting with a few apartment buildings and a lot of detached houses standing very close together, with lively commercial districts nearby, you may want to look closely at Davis Square in Somerville and Porter Square in Cambridge. Both are convenient to the red line on the T, which goes downtown, and makes the waterfront area accessible.

Jamaica Plain (in some neighborhoods) and the South End are two other big professionals/singles areas. The convenience of transportation depends on where exactly you live in the South End. To some degree this is also true in Jamaica Plain. The other issue in J.P. is that you'd need some good advice on the character of any neighborhood you might be considering, because J.P. has different feels in different neighborhoods. I'm not familiar enough with J.P. to give you a good street-by-street rundown, but you'd need this advice from someone familiar with the area in order to make sure you lived in a young professionals kind of neighborhood and not a family sort of area or a somewhat gritty sorta ghetto neighborhood. Of the South End and J.P., the South End has more of an inner-urban character, being more of a townhouse neighborhood, while J.P. is generally more similar to Davis Square and Porter Square in terms of density and urban character.

If you'd be interested in checking out other central city townhouse kinds of areas, you might also check out Beacon Hill and the Back Bay, but be aware that those areas are upscale and expensive, and even your housing budget might get you a tiny shoebox of an apartment. The North End is another inner urban area that will be less expensive on average than Beacon Hill or Back Bay, though still not exactly cheap, and here too many of the apartments may be on the small side. The North End was Boston's Little Italy for decades, and still retains some of that feel, though gentrification in recent years has diluted that character to some degree. The European look of narrow winding streets is still very much a part of the North End scenery, though.

In Brookline, you'd probably want to focus on the Brookline Village and Coolidge Corner neighborhoods. Much of the rest of Brookline is more family-oriented. Brookline is expensive, and even relatively low rents there might be fairly expensive, but your housing budget may allow you to afford the higher rents in properties with on-site parking, which you'd need in Brookline if you brought your car, due to the town's overnight parking ban.

[Lovely_Lotus]

Thanks! All the advice has been great.

[RC1981]

Originally Posted by Lovely_Lotus

Thanks for all the advice! Our housing budget will be around $2500-3000 a month. We will have one car we think. Not sure yet if we are going to bring it. Still have time to decide on that. As far as what we are looking for in a neighborhood is fun, young professionals, some nightlife but not college kids!

As far as jobs, Marriott has offered to relocate us to the Renaissance Waterfront. It looks like a nice one. We are both in management with Marriott right now. So we are thankful for the relocation! They just advised us today, so that was good news!

Ah well then that's totally different.

I'd recommend you sell the car and look in the Back Bay. The Waterfront can be a pain to get to on public transportation, but it's probably worse in a car (please note that's just speculation on my part, I've never driven there personally). Living in the Back Bay though, everything else you need in your life will be easy walking distance (although if you're used to driving everywhere it will feel like miles and miles and miles for the first couple of weeks ) I'm pretty sure to get to the waterfront you have to hop on the Silver Line at South Station (?), so maybe Beacon Hill might be a better spot because it's closer to the Red Line, and a pretty quick hop to South Station. But, you'll have all the same conveniences in Beacon Hill that you will in the Back Bay.

As far as college students goes, you probably won't find too many in the Back Bay (that is, the Back Bay defined as Arlington-Hereford and Beacon-Commonwealth). I think there's only two or three schools that have residential campuses there and they're pretty small, maybe three or four buildings max. The Back Bay would probably suit you guys very much, young well-to-do professionals and other people who somehow or another have a ton of money. Beacon Hill is a bit more uptight and snobby, but it's pretty much the same set, just older.

[Lovely_Lotus]

Thanks!

[citylover94]

If you are still thinking about Brookline it is very nice and parts of it are VERY urban but it is also more expensive to live in than some of the other suburbs.