My 2019 Thanksgiving in Massachusetts: I'am surprised the turkey did not stand up and say 'i want to move too' (Waltham: per square foot, property taxes)
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Well, I grew up in NJ (Bergen County) and couldn't get out of there fast enough. I much prefer New England.
Bergen County is overbuilt and expensive. I was nice in 1970. Today it is choked with traffic. The advantage of Bergen County today is mainly proximity to New York City and Shopping if you like Malls.
I was limited by my work (Westborough) and the desire to have a less than 20 min. commute. The choices were Westborough, Northborough, Southborough, Marlboro, Hopkinton, Ashland or Milford. Maybe Holliston. None of the "boro" towns are any cheaper than Hopkinton, Ashland is less expensive but not nearly as nice, Holliston is nice but another 10-15 min farther away.
I was fortunate that my commute was to Westborough, which could be driven with no traffic lights. But East-West traffic in Hopkinton is awful. It backs up for ~ 2 miles in the morning go east and the same in the afternoons going west.
I guess you could argue that Rt 9 is an East-West highway, but given the number of traffic lights, it will be no faster than local roads. I've had to commute to Waltham a few times, it can take 1 hr 15 min to go 19 miles. That's awful.
I don't think they will be widening roads here... it is expensive and the locals will fight it.
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Originally Posted by massnative71
Just the same, leafy Hopkinton is not necessarily a poster child for MA. It is one of the top most expensive towns on 495, and likewise some of the highest taxes. Get around the state more you find plenty of more "neighborhood" like communities or pretty much any setup you want. But saying that, yes as a general rule New Englanders like their privacy and large wooded lots have been a common preference (and this particularly holds true in Boston's western suburbs). And yes NIMBYs fought off 290 being extended to 128, leaving the Pike as the sole east-west highway (outside of Rte. 2). It's a downfall for commuters in comparison to north or south of Boston where you do have several options. But they really do need to widen some of the roads around Hopkinton, traffic and activity around there has grown way out of proportion to the local infrastructure. People do drive too slow on the backroads of MA (highways less so), but at least they aren't dangerous as they are in NJ. Tailgating there is out of control, at least whenever I drive through anyway.
Most people who diss NJ have never lived in NJ. They have not seen NJ. The part of NJ they are familiar with is the industrialized part along the NJ turnpike. Just like any other state, NJ has its good and bad parts.
If you spent some time in NJ you would find that it has amazing towns, which IMO are way way nicer than most MA towns. We had actually developments and subdivisions that were planned, not just a bunch of randomly built homes along winding narrow roads, roads with no shoulders or sidewalks. I have yet to see any neighborhood in Metrowest that comes close to what I had in NJ.
The housing stock here for the most part is crap. Old homes on undesirable lots, many don't even have a garage!
How many highways does MA have running through it?? In Metrowest you have the pike or 495. That's it. If you need to go anywhere else, you are stuck on slow local roads going 25 mph, behind someone who drives slower than your grandmother.
Ive lived in NY, including ~6 miles from the NJ border for over 5 years and frequented NJ often. NJ is a nice state, dont get me wrong. There are parts of NJ that are decent like Hoboken, Summit, Far Hills, Red Bank, Montclair and Morristown. It just doesnt compare to Massachusetts in my opinion, and Ive extensively seen both states from top to bottom. Ive been to nearly every shore point town (Cape May, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, Pt. Pleasant, Asbury Park, Toms River, Atlantic City, LBI, Sunset Beach Cape May, Beach Haven, Ocean City, Long Branch, and of course Seaside/Seaside Heights/Lavelette Beach), the Del Water Gap, the towns in between Philly and NYC... but just not the proper Philly suburbs down through Vineland. The most impressive towns to me were Princeton, Montclaire and Summit NJ. However, I have yet to find a place in NJ that tops some of the towns in MA like Rockport, Gloucester, Cohasset, Marblehead, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Duxbury and the Cape towns when it comes to coastal towns. I just don't see an equal that NJ has. You live out in Hopkinton, which is surrounded by Worcester County on three of the four sides. Hopkinton has seen massive growth and even larger pushback from the community to improve their infrastructure. Maybe thats why you dont like Mass. You live very far from the extremely desirable parts of Mass. If I lived in Hopkinton from a new state, I dont think I would be seeing the best of Mass.
I like in Boston, which combined with Cambridge, Somerville and Chelse have 30+ cranes in the sky and huge infrastructure projects in the name of rail underway. Most infrastructure projects in Eastern Mass are not centered around car dependency, but rather $10.5 billion to fix the t in the next 10 years, and a $4 billion extension of the Green Line through Somerville and up to the border of Medford. Adding highways will ruin what Western/Central Mass stands for and I would strongly oppose it too. What they need is RR, not CR. RR is an electrified version of the CR with much better frequencies and higher efficiency. This is where Mass is currently shifting their focus too.
However, you cant go on the Massachusetts forum and think people wont react to this. I suggest you get around Eastern Mass before you insult it that far. You are in a fast-growing town (+25% in population since 2010) far away from Boston with little infrastructure improvements. With what you pay in Hopkinton, you could easily live in Weymouth, Braintree or the North Shore and be much closer to Boston, in more desirable towns, close to much better services where you can use the very efficient by American standards train system called the MBTA. The best of what Eastern Massachusetts has to offer are all 45+ minutes from you including traffic. Its as if I lived in Westwood NJ (A traffic hellhole in Bergen County) and said NJ sucks. Thats not fair at all. Ignoring NYC, you are far to everything good NJ offers because of heavy bumper to bumper traffic on the Parkway and the Turnpike.
Another option would be Andover MA. Im actually shocked you havent gone up there. Its right near NH, 25 minutes to Boston by CR, 25-40 by car depending on traffic, close to awesome day trips like NH, Coastal Maine, Newburyport, Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester, Marblehead. It has an amazing downtown, and its a short drive to Lexington, Concord, Winchester, Melrose and Lowell who have equally as nice/almost as nice downtown squares and vibrancy. If I must ask, why Hopkinton?
And also, once again you have to be very rich to buy good stock in Boston. Like San Francisco, we dont build enough in Mass to keep up with the demand so homes around 400k - 600k are usualy the garbage ones. A good 4 bed, 3 bath home with a yard and garage in a good suburb runs you $1.2 million in the inner suburbs and probably around 750k out by Stow or Hopkinton where you are. In Milton I couldnt believe the going rate of a 3 bed 3 bath house, built in the 50s with little TLC... $800k. The good ones are a Million +, especially the closer you are to the Blue Hills and Canton Ave. NJ stock is much cheaper.
Whats your obsession with developments too? New England =/= Cookie Cutter Urban Sprawl. Thats one thing I cant stand about NJ is its urban sprawly, cookie cutter homes. Its very poor urban planning developed from the Levittowns
MA is in the top 20 in tax burden, and it is #6 in individual tax burden. Compare that to NH, which is 46th in tax burden...
And don't ignore all the hidden taxes in MA, like the excise tax on your car. Buying a new car here? You will pay $25 per $1000 in value, so that new $30,000 Honda will cost you $750 the first year of ownership. It will drop to 80% of that the second year, but add it all up and over the first five years you will pay thousands of dollars in excise tax for the privilege of having a car here..and what do you get in return for your money? Bad roads and dense traffic. I haven't seen a single road improvement (I.e. widening, adding lanes, left turn lanes etc) in 5 years.
Then there is the cost of contractors in MA. Everything here is close to double what you will pay in NH, PA or other states. The quotes I got for an electrician, plumber were all more than double anywhere else I've lived. Need yardwork? That's double also. Everything is extremely expensive here.
Again, you are talking about your circumstances in Hopkinton. You picked the baby factory town with minimal commercial real estate, not me. My mill rate is $9.93. I have no problem getting trade people to do work at reasonable prices. I used to live in Portsmouth NH. I did the retirement math and bailed out to the Massachusetts South Coast. I can walk to the beach. I can walk to the dinghy dock. My housing price per square foot is half of Portsmouth. The property taxes are 1/4 what I was paying in Portsmouth. When I start collecting Social Security, it won’t be taxed.
Of course, I also used to own a house in Winchester. Trade people would drive up my driveway and double their prices.
Bergen County is overbuilt and expensive. I was nice in 1970. Today it is choked with traffic. The advantage of Bergen County today is mainly proximity to New York City and Shopping if you like Malls.
Well, I was here in 1970 and hated it then. Not at all for me.
Pine Barrens is part of "weird NJ.." The southern part of the state is nothing like the North. It is more flat, much less expensive, typically much different demographics as well.. more blue collar, more Republican.
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Originally Posted by redplum33
Sound like someone enjoyed the Pine Barrens episode of the Sopranos. I did too.
Summit is a nice town (expensive) as is Westfield and Cranford. I have not been to Montclair in a long time, but that is a popular town and yes even Morristown is now desirable with a nightlife and restaurants and bars. I was talking more about the smaller towns, like Clinton, Lambertville, Frenchtown, but there are many others such as Oldwick, Chester, etc. Princeton is a college town, so lots of chain stores but also local boutiques. Very popular town, maybe similar to Wellsley. I haven't been to all the towns you mentioned, I did visit Gloucester, that was a nicer town with a decent amount of stores and restaurants. Also was in Salem a couple weeks ago, parts are very nice ( a relatively small area of plaza with well kept stores and restaurants) the rest of Salem wasn't so nice, and the outskirts were downright blight. (and traffic choked).
Yes, I ended up Hopkinton mainly due to the work commute, it was probably not the right town for me for many reasons. Good proximity to two state parks (Hopkinton/Ashland), some nice roads for biking, but in general the milltowns in Middlesex and Worcester county just aren't that nice. Hopkinton has been growing a lot, probably due to the school systems, as well as new developments they have put in.
Now I did like Stow, and Concord and some of the other areas you mentioned (Hudson too). But homes in Concord are $1M, and not much cheaper in Sudbury or the surrounding areas in the Route 2 corridor. Harvard and Carlisle and some of the other towns farther north of here are nicer. I've visited Andover and North Andover. nice areas but too far from my job.
NOt sure what to say about railroad.. I've ridden the MBTA commuter rail, it's not very good. Expensive and slow. It's 25 miles to Boston from Ashland and it still takes an hour. That's one slow train.
What you said about house prices is right on the mark... well I am a homebuyer in the $400-600k range. In Western NJ I had a 4 bedroom Colonial on 2 acres. Granted I was 50 miles from NYC and 60 miles from Philly. It would be the equivalent of living out West of Worcester here. In this area I ended up in a Townhome (Duplex) which was over $500k. I don't need/want a $700k home and the taxes would be too much. Just remember other than Boston or SF most other parts of the country a 1950s cape home would be $100k. So yeah the housing market here is a big negative.
As far as developments, a lot of NJ homes are built on converted farmland, so they had to put in roads and infrastructure. In the developments I lived in, there were dozens of different home models, not just one so it doesn't have the appearance of cookie cutter at all. Once the landscaping grows in, the neighborhoods are very attractive and you can walk through the neighborhood on an actual sidewalk.
I have been to a lot of different parts of Mass. if I was to move within Mass, I think I'd go out to Northampton or somewhere in Central or Western Mass where at least it is affordable to buy a home.
Quote:
Originally Posted by masssachoicetts
Ive lived in NY, including ~6 miles from the NJ border for over 5 years and frequented NJ often. NJ is a nice state, dont get me wrong. There are parts of NJ that are decent like Hoboken, Summit, Far Hills, Red Bank, Montclair and Morristown. It just doesnt compare to Massachusetts in my opinion, and Ive extensively seen both states from top to bottom. Ive been to nearly every shore point town (Cape May, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, Pt. Pleasant, Asbury Park, Toms River, Atlantic City, LBI, Sunset Beach Cape May, Beach Haven, Ocean City, Long Branch, and of course Seaside/Seaside Heights/Lavelette Beach), the Del Water Gap, the towns in between Philly and NYC... but just not the proper Philly suburbs down through Vineland. The most impressive towns to me were Princeton, Montclaire and Summit NJ. However, I have yet to find a place in NJ that tops some of the towns in MA like Rockport, Gloucester, Cohasset, Marblehead, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Duxbury and the Cape towns when it comes to coastal towns. I just don't see an equal that NJ has. You live out in Hopkinton, which is surrounded by Worcester County on three of the four sides. Hopkinton has seen massive growth and even larger pushback from the community to improve their infrastructure. Maybe thats why you dont like Mass. You live very far from the extremely desirable parts of Mass. If I lived in Hopkinton from a new state, I dont think I would be seeing the best of Mass.
I like in Boston, which combined with Cambridge, Somerville and Chelse have 30+ cranes in the sky and huge infrastructure projects in the name of rail underway. Most infrastructure projects in Eastern Mass are not centered around car dependency, but rather $10.5 billion to fix the t in the next 10 years, and a $4 billion extension of the Green Line through Somerville and up to the border of Medford. Adding highways will ruin what Western/Central Mass stands for and I would strongly oppose it too. What they need is RR, not CR. RR is an electrified version of the CR with much better frequencies and higher efficiency. This is where Mass is currently shifting their focus too.
However, you cant go on the Massachusetts forum and think people wont react to this. I suggest you get around Eastern Mass before you insult it that far. You are in a fast-growing town (+25% in population since 2010) far away from Boston with little infrastructure improvements. With what you pay in Hopkinton, you could easily live in Weymouth, Braintree or the North Shore and be much closer to Boston, in more desirable towns, close to much better services where you can use the very efficient by American standards train system called the MBTA. The best of what Eastern Massachusetts has to offer are all 45+ minutes from you including traffic. Its as if I lived in Westwood NJ (A traffic hellhole in Bergen County) and said NJ sucks. Thats not fair at all. Ignoring NYC, you are far to everything good NJ offers because of heavy bumper to bumper traffic on the Parkway and the Turnpike.
Another option would be Andover MA. Im actually shocked you havent gone up there. Its right near NH, 25 minutes to Boston by CR, 25-40 by car depending on traffic, close to awesome day trips like NH, Coastal Maine, Newburyport, Gloucester, Rockport, Manchester, Marblehead. It has an amazing downtown, and its a short drive to Lexington, Concord, Winchester, Melrose and Lowell who have equally as nice/almost as nice downtown squares and vibrancy. If I must ask, why Hopkinton?
And also, once again you have to be very rich to buy good stock in Boston. Like San Francisco, we dont build enough in Mass to keep up with the demand so homes around 400k - 600k are usualy the garbage ones. A good 4 bed, 3 bath home with a yard and garage in a good suburb runs you $1.2 million in the inner suburbs and probably around 750k out by Stow or Hopkinton where you are. In Milton I couldnt believe the going rate of a 3 bed 3 bath house, built in the 50s with little TLC... $800k. The good ones are a Million +, especially the closer you are to the Blue Hills and Canton Ave. NJ stock is much cheaper.
Whats your obsession with developments too? New England =/= Cookie Cutter Urban Sprawl. Thats one thing I cant stand about NJ is its urban sprawly, cookie cutter homes. Its very poor urban planning developed from the Levittowns
Summit is a nice town (expensive) as is Westfield and Cranford. I have not been to Montclair in a long time, but that is a popular town and yes even Morristown is now desirable with a nightlife and restaurants and bars. I was talking more about the smaller towns, like Clinton, Lambertville, Frenchtown, but there are many others such as Oldwick, Chester, etc. Princeton is a college town, so lots of chain stores but also local boutiques. Very popular town, maybe similar to Wellsley. I haven't been to all the towns you mentioned, I did visit Gloucester, that was a nicer town with a decent amount of stores and restaurants. Also was in Salem a couple weeks ago, parts are very nice ( a relatively small area of plaza with well kept stores and restaurants) the rest of Salem wasn't so nice, and the outskirts were downright blight. (and traffic choked).
Yes, I ended up Hopkinton mainly due to the work commute, it was probably not the right town for me for many reasons. Good proximity to two state parks (Hopkinton/Ashland), some nice roads for biking, but in general the milltowns in Middlesex and Worcester county just aren't that nice. Hopkinton has been growing a lot, probably due to the school systems, as well as new developments they have put in.
Now I did like Stow, and Concord and some of the other areas you mentioned (Hudson too). But homes in Concord are $1M, and not much cheaper in Sudbury or the surrounding areas in the Route 2 corridor. Harvard and Carlisle and some of the other towns farther north of here are nicer. I've visited Andover and North Andover. nice areas but too far from my job.
NOt sure what to say about railroad.. I've ridden the MBTA commuter rail, it's not very good. Expensive and slow. It's 25 miles to Boston from Ashland and it still takes an hour. That's one slow train.
What you said about house prices is right on the mark... well I am a homebuyer in the $400-600k range. In Western NJ I had a 4 bedroom Colonial on 2 acres. Granted I was 50 miles from NYC and 60 miles from Philly. It would be the equivalent of living out West of Worcester here. In this area I ended up in a Townhome (Duplex) which was over $500k. I don't need/want a $700k home and the taxes would be too much. Just remember other than Boston or SF most other parts of the country a 1950s cape home would be $100k. So yeah the housing market here is a big negative.
As far as developments, a lot of NJ homes are built on converted farmland, so they had to put in roads and infrastructure. In the developments I lived in, there were dozens of different home models, not just one so it doesn't have the appearance of cookie cutter at all. Once the landscaping grows in, the neighborhoods are very attractive and you can walk through the neighborhood on an actual sidewalk.
I have been to a lot of different parts of Mass. if I was to move within Mass, I think I'd go out to Northampton or somewhere in Central or Western Mass where at least it is affordable to buy a home.
With all due respect, I just think you are in the wrong part of Mass. You sound like you would enjoy an Andover, Sudbury, or North Shore town like Georgetown or Ipswich better. They are cheaper than Hopkinton for sure. MA is so much more enjoyable with one of the country's best cities at your doorstep. All said cities, bar Sudbury are cheaper than Hopkinton. Mass won't be getting cheaper with all the new tech companies pouring in and fierce backlash from NIMBY's. If the job isn't holding you back, the pioneer valley (Northampton, Amherst, etc) is still very vibrant, wealthy and funky. However, I warn you about the Worcester market... the appreciation of the market this decade is expected to very very good. Worcester is the next 'boomtown' relative to it's size they say. Basically, they are redoing the bad intersections, filling in the parking lots with condos and restaurants and adding a baseball team. So that will easily raise home values by 50% when all set and done.
The T isnt great, but its one of the better systems in the country. Efficient? By an American standard, sure. Its on-time performance is 93%, better than NY's at 70% or Phillys at 78%. If you get on the right line, its well worth it. I used to live next to Canton Junction back as a kid and it was a 25 minute ride in town, verse a 50+ minute ride plus parking. It was well worth it. There will be a huge overhaul in the next 20 years to convert it to regional rail and hopefully start making the 70 mile Boston-Providence trip in 46 minutes. When I ride the Commuter Rail from Wellesley to South Station it takes me 20 minutes at the most and its about a 22-30 minute ride from door to door, maybe longer with traffic. I live on the Orange Line subway, and I work off an Orange Line stop. For me the Orange Line takes ~7 minutes of a ride. I rarely use the commuter rail, unless its on the weekend for the $10 deal they do... so I can't comment too much on that, since Im a frequent T (Subway) rider, and it works for me especially since they got new cars.
Back to the homes, 400-600k after 2014, won't get you squat. The demand is just too strong in Greater Boston, but for some reason, the crunch really gets out into NH, Worcester County and even down into central Bristol and Plymouth counties. New townhomes are popping up for 400k+ in Plymouth. Plymouth? Thats how you know it's gotten too far, when the town that borders the Cape is feeling the wrath of the housing shortage. In 2010, if you go on Streetview you could get a 2 bed/2 bath condo in Boston for about 300k. Roxbury? Dorchester? No, literally the South End and Southie. Thats crazy talk now because the same units go for 800k+ easily. Boston is really a tricky market, its expensive, its very competitive, and people are literally having bidding wars on homes. There was an article about some guy selling his Newtown home for like 700k, and he ended up getting 50k more over a bidding war for the home. Although its cooled off a little bit and we are slightly more in a "Buyer's Market" (yeah, okay sure right), the competition has cooled off a bit. Or, what they dont tell you is that Somerville/Cambridge/Boston is still a battleground for homes while the outer core and suburbs are reallllyyy starting to slow their growth. Hopefully, this lead to a halt in property values like they have in the past year.
I guess the theme here is towns/suburbs near Boston that have beautiful coastal beauty. I picked towns that are pretty but offer some natural beauty on the coast, within 30 minutes of Boston's city borders. I know I missed a ton, but the coastal beauty is one of New England's finest qualities to either live in or visit.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Atomicdoug
Pine Barrens is part of "weird NJ.." The southern part of the state is nothing like the North. It is more flat, much less expensive, typically much different demographics as well.. more blue collar, more Republican.
I don't know about the politics, but it has some stellar herp fauna. A group I am a member of has done two of their national meetings there over the last couple of decades. Its nice, and a lot easier for me to get to than say, snake road.
Oh. I see you quoted a tv watching kid. I guess some people really do get their information from the screen. Pretty pathetic and sad. They should get out of the house sometime if they can muster the courage.
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Pine Barrens?
