moving to Massachusetts....HELP!!! (Boston, Cambridge: real estate, condos, rental)

[lola8822]

Hi All,
My name is Lori I am 26 years old, my husband, myself and my 5 year old will be moving to Massachusetts for a lot of reasons but mostly for my husbands Job (RN) and the school systems out there for our child. I have never been to boston (we will be visiting before we move to be sure) nor do i know anyone who lives there or who has lived there. My family is originally from Long Island, NY and something about the east coast calls out to me We have no clue on where to start but I would GREATLY appreciate any help anyone can offer. Here is our criteria....

- We would like an area low crime and family friendly.
- Commute time to Boston would have to be 40mins or less.
- Affordable....we are looking at about 400 - 500 k.
- Awesome schools....not good but Awesome.

Some things we would Likeare
- 30 Mins from ocean if possible
- lakes nearby
- A good size mall (for me

And can anyone tell me how the winters are?? We are from phoenix and you all know we don't know what snow is out here so are the winters bad? like wake up 4 hours early to digg your car out of the snow bad? or even wake up late because there's no way your getting your car out of the snow bad??

I've heard from friends of friends of friends that the more north or west of the city you go is where you'll find the "nicer" towns is this true? or if it's easier maybe you all can just advise me on what towns to stay away from

THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME!!!!!

[brightdoglover]

will be moving to Massachusetts for a lot of reasons but mostly for my husbands Job (RN) and the school systems out there for our child. I have never been to boston (we will be visiting before we move to be sure) .We have no clue on where to start but I would GREATLY appreciate any help anyone can offer. Here is our criteria....

- We would like an area low crime and family friendly.
- Commute time to Boston would have to be 40mins or less.
- Affordable....we are looking at about 400 - 500 k.
- Awesome schools....not good but Awesome.

- 30 Mins from ocean if possible
- lakes nearby
- A good size mall (for me

And can anyone tell me how the winters are?? like wake up 4 hours early to digg your car out of the snow bad? or even wake up late because there's no way your getting your car out of the snow bad??

It was that way once. 1978, the Blizzard.
Winters have gotten increasingly milder in the 33 years I've lived in the area. Some years we've only had one or two plowable days. There are only a few single-digit days every season, and any snow tends to melt relatively fast. Yes, there's more winter than Phoenix, but it's really no big deal. Honest.

I've heard from friends of friends of friends that the more north or west of the city you go is where you'll find the "nicer" towns is this true?
Well, I sure think so, but I'm biased- I'm 25 miles NW of Cambridge, which means about 30 mi. NW of Boston. But north/west of the city and 30" from the ocean? Not gonna happen, sorry.

Around my parts, "awesome schools" would have to start with Acton. Town of Harvard. Oh, of course, Lexington- the best town in the world for families, communities, and schools (but not very affordable. However, if your "affordable is $400k-$500K, salut!) Lexington is closest to the city. There is a commuter rail that runs through the western suburbs, but if your husband is an RN (like me) is he likely to be working shift work? Because the commuter rail is terrible for anything except 9-5, suburb to city, Monday-Friday.

Let's see, more awesome schools. Newton. A great community, public transport, very high educational levels, a real town feel near the city.
Brookline is magnificent, an urban city next to Boston. The schools are topnotch, the community very diverse, very urbane and just a bit fore urban than Newton.

Of course, none of these towns are on the cheaper side of things. You'll have to pay in more modest housing for those awesome schools, but these communities are great places to live. (By the way, I don't have kids, but keep an eye on rankings for real estate purposes).

[brightdoglover]

lakes nearby
- A good size mall (for me)


A P.S. There are lakes in northwest suburbs, Littleton, Groton, Harvard. I doubt any would be a 40-minute commute to Boston, at least during normal business hours. If your husband is doing shift work and might be driving in off hours, it's a whole different story. I drive 20 miles to the edge of Cambridge at 11p each night, sometimes without even having to stop for a light. Coming home in the morning, heading out from the city, I see cars stacked up going into the city no matter where they're coming from, as I sail on home. It's a huge difference.
If hub is working usual business hours, I'd strongly suggest Newton or Brookline (and you might end up in a condo in Brookline) and have him take the very present public transport into town. Is he working at one of the big downtown hospitals? Being at work at 7a (the hospital version of "business hours!") might be doable by car.

[manchester]

Lexington- the best town in the world for families, communities, and schools


not sure you know about the troubles and what has been happening there in a certain school.

I'm sure someone could provide you links to how the school ignored parents rights and then later how the kid was beaten up from a group of bullies along with two families having things thrown at their house and getting abusive phone calls

[eevee]

Originally Posted by manchester

Lexington- the best town in the world for families, communities, and schools


not sure you know about the troubles and what has been happening there in a certain school.

I'm sure someone could provide you links to how the school ignored parents rights and then later how the kid was beaten up from a group of bullies along with two families having things thrown at their house and getting abusive phone calls

are you talking about that whole, overblown incident where the kids were given a book that displayed different kinds of families, including a gay one? IMHO, some of the parents in that incident overreacted to the whole situation (of course these same parents don't demand to review all the other stuff the kids read in school. parental rights doesn't equal demanding to know every little thing your kid is reading in school). I wouldn't bash the whole town/school system for one incident. Lexington is a GREAT area, though not anywhere close to the ocean, however, it's close to Fresh Pond and parts of the Charles River (I think)

[ogre]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

lakes nearby
- A good size mall (for me)


A P.S. There are lakes in northwest suburbs, Littleton, Groton, Harvard. I doubt any would be a 40-minute commute to Boston, at least during normal business hours. If your husband is doing shift work and might be driving in off hours, it's a whole different story. I drive 20 miles to the edge of Cambridge at 11p each night, sometimes without even having to stop for a light. Coming home in the morning, heading out from the city, I see cars stacked up going into the city no matter where they're coming from, as I sail on home. It's a huge difference.
If hub is working usual business hours, I'd strongly suggest Newton or Brookline (and you might end up in a condo in Brookline) and have him take the very present public transport into town. Is he working at one of the big downtown hospitals? Being at work at 7a (the hospital version of "business hours!") might be doable by car.

Brightdog has a couple of good points: 1) Commuting time depends a lot on the work schedule (it's very congested during usual rush hours, and you can't really be very far from the city and stay within a 40-minute commute if those are your hours); 2) You have more options if you buy a condo.

Regarding the second point, I'm not very familiar with condos, and don't know how much of a reduction in costs you're looking at if you buy a condo rather than a house. If you're interested in the condo option, let's hope some people on here with more knowledge in that area will jump in.

If you'd prefer a house and yard, fortunately you're likely to find what you're looking for, though it may take some serious looking to find the best spot for all your criteria where the housing costs are in line with your needs. It is true that the western and northwestern suburbs probably have the most widespread affluence, but there are individual towns all over the Boston area that are nice places to live. One town west of Boston that is a nice, clean, safe place, and an oasis in the western suburbs when it comes to housing costs is Natick. Larger town, about 30,000 population. Variety of neighborhoods, from subdivision suburban to quaint old tree-shaded, to a little bit open and borderline country. At greatschools.net most of their schools get ratings of 9 out of 10, but a few get 10. Don't know how awesome you mean by AWESOME when it comes to schools. At the outer limit of your 40-minute requirement, either by car or train.

If you can go farther on the commute, three towns to look into, toward the southwest, are Ashland, Holliston, and Hopkinton. A little more out in the country, some woods and fields and winding roads. Growing fast, so I'd guess that house values will rise fairly quickly, and buying a house in one of these towns may be an especially good investment. Take this with a few grains of salt, though, because I'm no real estate expert. This is my sense of what's happening in that area, however.

Norhtwest of Boston, a town similar to Ashland and the H's, which may well meet all your criteria except commuting time, is Littleton. A few towns you might look into north of the city are Hamilton, Newbury, Ipswich, Rowley, and Rockport. Ipswich and Rowley are VERY small. Ipswich and Rockport are on the coast and may be somewhat touristy. As for schools, Hamilton has the advantage, at least at the high school level, of sharing a regional high school with the neighboring town of Wenham, which is a rather affluent town, so that Hamilton's high school students benefit from funding that Hamilton alone could not provide.

All these towns are probably at the limits of your 40-minute commute, and may well be outside this range during rush hours. Everywhere in the Boston area has a lot of traffic congestion, but it seems that the heaviest congestion is on roads from the north and south, so this needs to be taken into account when estimating commuting time. One northern town to check out a bit closer to Boston is Lynnfield, a safe, pleasant, suburban kind of town.

Less familiar with towns south of Boston, but I'd think there must be towns to the south that meet your criteria.. What kind of town are you looking for, besides the criteria you've already specified? What are you looking for in the way of downtown area, local shopping, recreation, or general character of the town (suburban, little more country, little more urban, friendly small-town feel)? This info could help narrow it down some more. Good luck, and welcome to the area.

[ogre]

For school ratings, you might check greatschools.net. They base their ratings on standardized test scores. At Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed you can get info on data such as student/teacher ratio, expenditures on schools, etc. At BestPlaces, you can click on a map of the U.S. to get a list of communities in the state you want to check out. Not every town in MA is included in this list, but you should be able to find towns not on the list by entering their names in the search box at the site.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by eevee

are you talking about that whole, overblown incident where the kids were given a book that displayed different kinds of families, including a gay one? IMHO, some of the parents in that incident overreacted to the whole situation (of course these same parents don't demand to review all the other stuff the kids read in school. parental rights doesn't equal demanding to know every little thing your kid is reading in school). I wouldn't bash the whole town/school system for one incident. Lexington is a GREAT area, though not anywhere close to the ocean, however, it's close to Fresh Pond and parts of the Charles River (I think)

I don't know anything about this incident. If it is true that some families were harassed as a result of this, that would seem like something definitely worth knowing about. Does anyone know any more details about this?

Also, this does bring up the point that Lexington is a very left-wing town politically. One of those towns people in the area sometimes refer to, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, as The People's Republic of . . . Also, from what I've heard from people I know who live there, Lexington tends to be very intolerant of anyone whose views don't lean way to the left. We don't know Lola8822's views, but it's worth noting that the prevailing views in Lexington go enough toward the extreme that most people are likely to either love it or hate it, without a lot of room in the middle.

This may be a moot point anyway, as Lexington's house prices are probably out of the range Lola has specified.

[manchester]

This is what I was told and read if we're talking about the same incident
I'm not saying if I agree or disagree with it

basically

a father wanted to know what his 6 year old kid was being teached
after a few months he never got an answer so he went to teachers parents night and said he isn't leaving the school until a teacher would tell him
they had him arrested and had an order against him banning him from coming to school
his kid was then coming home with books about men dressing up as women, or being told stories about it and a book which had two prince's falling in love then the picture in the book had the two men kissing
he objected with another family and said they had a right to know they said no you don't
his kid was then picked on and beaten by a group of kids at the school, aslo the families had abusive calls and things thrown at their houses

I believe it's still in the courts as we speak, is this the same one you was mentioning.
curious so I looked on the internet and did a search
found these bills what says schools don't have to notify parents what they tell the kids in school
H597 / S288
other bills
(H465, H509, H521, H541
then there's another bill what is saying parents do have a right to be notified called 321



here's a link about it

parentshttp://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/20/parents_rip_school_over_gay_storybook/



I must stress that I've driven through lexington and it is a beautiful upscale area, full of big nice houses and open area.s with lots of trees


ogre I sent you a link

[ogre]

And can anyone tell me how the winters are?? like wake up 4 hours early to digg your car out of the snow bad? or even wake up late because there's no way your getting your car out of the snow bad??

It was that way once. 1978, the Blizzard.
Winters have gotten increasingly milder in the 33 years I've lived in the area. Some years we've only had one or two plowable days. There are only a few single-digit days every season, and any snow tends to melt relatively fast. Yes, there's more winter than Phoenix, but it's really no big deal. Honest.



Well, just to make sure Lola8822 gets the straight straight story, the winters here probably will seem substatial if all that Lola and family are familiar with is Phoenix. Winters are generally very manageable, though, in terms of being able to get around, etc. Snowfall varies some from winter to winter. In a typical winter, there might be one or two storms hefty enough that you MIGHT have to spend a half hour, maybe an hour, shovelling out before work. Mostly, though, you put snow tires on your car, and with most snowfalls, you just drive right out your driveway, then shovel when you get home and have the time.