First Time Home Buyer (Cambridge, Quincy: house prices, neighborhoods, taxes)

[captainchrissy]

Hello,
I'm a first time home buyer. I currently live in Weymouth work in Cambridge and my boyfriend works in Braintree. We are looking for homes in the South Shore area (except weymouth) that are <250,000 that have a somewhat country feel (ie, larger amount of land would be nice). We obviously love Scituate, Hingham,etc but haven't been able to find anything in our price range. How is Whitman? Houses seem reasonable there. He's extremely handy, so a fixer upper is fine.

I work in a stressful area so I would like to live somewhere peaceful where I could ride my bike or take the dogs for a walk. We have no kids now, but I'm 30 and could have some in the near future.

My boyfriend would like less than a 30 minute commute to work. I would somewhat like public transportation or a highway near me as I work 9-5 and would be dealing with the rush hour. Any town suggestions? I really appreciate your help.

[Beachcomber4]

I know people who live in Whitman, Hanson and Pembroke and love it. Parts of each town lack convenience to the highway so you will definately need to narrow searches to specific areas to keep commute time down. You can definately find something in your price range and all 3 towns still have a small town, country feel.

[tripmama]

What about Marshfield, or possibly parts of Quincy? Even though Quincy is a city, there are plenty of very nice neighborhoods, many of them close to Wollaston and N. Quincy T stops. I think you might also be able to find something in that range (though a smaller, fixer-upper) in Braintree. Pond Meadow Park is a great place for hiking and dog-walking, try that neighborhood.

[happywifey]

Have you thought of Holbrook? We actually bought in Weymouth but house prices were a lot lower in Holbrook. It just seemed out in the boonies to us. You can easily find a house with land for under $250K in Holbrook. I think the taxes are higher, but that's because there isn't much there! Quiet little towns have their perks though.