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I live in Burlington, Massachusetts. I'm looking for a new house to buy. I can afford up to 500K. Below are my requirements.
New construction (2015-2017)
4 bed 2.5 bath.
2 Car garage
Low crime rates
Good schools
Easy access to highways
With my above requirement and my budget, I cannot get a decent house in great cities like Westford, Littleton, Bedford etc. The only place where I found kinda house I'm looking is in Dracut MA. Dracut has lots of new constructions going on between 450-500K range. My questions are.
1) Do you think it is worth to spend 500K on a house in Dracut?
2) Seems like the schools are not that great. Anybody who lives here please comment about this? is this true?
3) As per my research, the crime rate is low in Dracut? Do you think Dracut is a safe neighborhood to raise a family?
4) Accessing to highways are a major problem here. Always have to drive through Lowell. Any comments about that?
5) The new constructions in Dracut are great looking than those pretty old renovated houses in Westford, Littleton etc. But is it really worth going to Dracut because of the new construction.
6) Last question is: If Dracut is not an option, I'm thinking about moving to New Hampshire (Hudson or Nashua) They have new construction around 400K-450K. The only problem is we are moving 15 miles further from Boston. And also the property tax is going to be high. Other than that Hudson seems pretty good place. (I'm going to add a new question in Hudson forum also. but would like your suggestion if you have any experience living there)
I agree with Boston_Burbs. OP - I understand your desire. Your stated house would be great, and that's basically what I had in my previous house. And while I loved the house, I hated living there. There was not much to do, and a lot of the new businesses that finally went in were big box stores and chains. (And I like some big box stores and chains, but I don't want them exclusively.) I do have to say, though, that I am not familiar with Dracut - I know where it is but I have not been there myself, so I can't say whether it's a town that would have it's own charm and appeal. But my guess from discussions about it is that it doesn't have a whole lot (and if I'm incorrect on that, then my opinion my not apply.)
But I've sacrificed location for home a couple of times and I have always regretted doing so. Commuting into the city from an exurb gets old really fast. It sucks so much time out of the day, and when you do it every weekday, you often don't really want to do it again on the weekend. People who live close to the city don't want to haul out to see you. If there is ever anything you'd like to go to in the city or even one of the close in suburbs (whatever it might be - concert, art show, conference, workshop, book discussion, hobby meeting, etc) becomes a real PITA. And while your husband's commute to Burlington wouldn't be as bad, it doesn't appear that it would be great.
And yes, the exurbs will be the first to lose value if there is a market downturn. While I think Boston is safer, there are no guarantees. I was just telling someone last night that the thing about Boston is that business are booming. There are so many jobs in Cambridge, in addition to Boston, while the mass transit system is designed to get people into Boston, not Cambridge. And east of the city is the ocean, so the places where people can go to live is limited. So, the feasibility of a commute to both Boston and Cambridge will be a factor in housing prices. Almost anyplace within 95/128 is going to hold value and likely go up. As you get further outside that radius, the reliability of holding housing value will go down. The next "natural" line would be 495, and that gets dicier. Dracut is even outside 495. In its favor, it looks reasonably close to the highways, but the further out you are from the city, the more quickly your house will be a victim of any real estate downturn. (The commutability to any other employment hubs in the area will also be a factor, and it doesn't look like it's near a whole lot of them to me. But again, I might be wrong.)
It really depends a lot on what makes you happy -- if you went to Dracut and love the area, have zero desire to go into Boston any more than absolutely necessary for work, and really like what Dracut itself offers, then it would be a good choice. But if you're moving there as a compromise because you want a bigger house, and really what you'd like is the city or a close in suburb, don't do it. Your QOL will suffer.
I thought I'd be stuck in my exurb house until we retired. Once you move to a house, even if you don't love the area, it is a real hassle to move, especially if you have kids who will not want to move. Unexpectedly, my husband ended up getting a job here in Boston, and our number one priority was getting a house in a suburb that was as close to the city as we could get. We sacrificed space and age of home, and while I do miss my old house because I did like it much better than my current house, we are not at all sorry. (We could have gotten a house like our previous house, or even bigger and newer if we had gone further out. But we did not allow ourselves to be seduced.)
If you really think that you need, for example, more room, consider moving to the town where you really want to live. An in-town move is much less hassle than a longer move. If you really need to add more space down the road, consider a place that has the potential to add on, or a town that has larger houses. If you're moving and your kids are already in the schools with their established friends and routine, moving within the same school district isn't nearly so traumatic. And you already know the grocery stores, doctors, hairdressers, etc.
With your list:
4 bed 2.5 bath: I don't know what your family size and other needs are, but we have two kids and a dog, and occasional overnight guests. We decided that we could live with 3 bedrooms as long as there was someplace else in the house where guests could stay (such as a finished basement). While we used to have a home office, we found that we used it less and less, because now my husband, son and I all have laptops, so any work or personal business is done more typically on the couch, rather than in a separate office area. If you have some kind of home based business, examine whether you really need a dedicated room, or if you could get by with an area of the home or shelving for those needs. Also, we decided that 2, rather than 2.5 baths was something we could live with (even though 2.5 is ideal, and if it came down to it and it was absolutely necessary, we could live with 1.5 if it came to that. For us, it didn't.)
2 Car garage: We had a huge 2 car attached garage. it had lots of room for both our cars and tons of crap. We did love our garage. But, in order to get to a place where we loved the location, we were prepared to even have no garage. We saw lots of houses that had no garage, or detached garages. We ended up in a home with a one car, attached garage. I do appreciate that we have an attached garage, and yes, we do miss having an attached 2 car garage, because that was really nice. But we love where we are so much that we do not at all regret making that trade.
Low crime rates: Yes, but a positive in Boston is that there are many areas that are pretty safe.
Good schools: Again, lots of MA schools are really good, and you can sacrifice other things to make sure you do have this and low crime.
Easy access to highways: A factor related to location. Access to highways if you're 100 miles away from the city or anyplace you want to go isn't all it's cracked up to be. Certainly, yes if you are far out, access to highways is more desirable than no access to highways. But the closer in you are the less of a factor this is. (Not that it is never a factor.)
What strikes me is you're concerned about highway access, while much of Hudson isn't accessible from highway. There is the Exit 1A/2 connection from Rte. 3 the Sagamore Bridge, but you'll still have to rely on 3A, 111 and perhaps 102 to get around depending where you are in Hudson. And you have to cross a river—but that matters more to me, because I don't consider going through Nashua (or Windham) to access a highway as an ideal commute to Burlington or Boston. For that matter, you could travel through Tyngsboro for highway access for roughly the same distance. In other words you may as well live in Dracut over Hudson and avoiding NH's higher property taxes and having fewer resources due to a smaller state government. (Even then, you're still on the other side of the river.)
I'd sooner pick an older house in Westford; but if you want new, are thinking twice about Dracut, and don't mind NH, I'd suggest living in a city/ town already on Rte. 3.
At the end of the day, only you can decide what's worth your while.
Why do you need new construction? You are willing to live in NH in a blah school district and see your kids for 15 minutes before bedtime? I would rethink your priorities.
Thank you, everyone for your time and replies. This will make my decision easier.
New constructions have all these appealing looks that we can’t resist. Now I know we should prioritize our needs before making any decision. I surprised that I got this many replies. Thanks again for your input.
I live and work in Dracut and so far we love it! We live in east Dracut which is easily accessible to 93 and 495. My oldest son went to Kindergarten last year at the Campbell School. He had a great year and I'm happy with the school. The bus picks him up st the end of our driveway which makes life so easy. My other son will be starting K in September. The schools get a bad rep, but I was very impressed with the Campbell school. Dracut is changing, and the younger demographic is moving in with all the new construction which will help the schools. Im excited to see what the future holds for dracut.
Last edited by CaseyB; 07-11-2017 at 04:22 AM..
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