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Hi There
Toying with the idea of working out of home near a possible business contact in Framingham. I've just read some not-so-good things about Framingham itself in a different thread about the police being biased/not so nice to newcomers. We're done dealing with that from other locations.
I'm used to somewhat rural north central CT.... I'm looking for an area where one can still find a 10yr. or younger 2400 s.f. home for around $420-$450k on at least a half acre. Like the country but want reasonable driving distance to shopping (grocery, gas, a Target, etc.) Like I mentioned, work at home but would want to be somewhat close to Framingham area, maybe 35 min. I'm thinking anything east will be expensive.... I'm trying to look into Holden, am I on the right track?
(Want a yard where we can have privacy and some wildlife, but NOT annoying neighbors on 4 wheelers/snowmobiles). Work at home requires peace and quiet.
Most definately we will get back to CT at the very least, but I'm willing to explore possibilities in MA. Thanks in advance to anyone who may be of some assistance on which towns to start with. Peace and quiet are of great importance.
Since I'm pretty sure that a post I made was one of the "not so good things" you've read on another thread, let me address that situation first. The part of my post you quoted in the other thread was about local clannishness and cronyism among longtime Framingham residents, and how that may work to the disadvantage of newer arrivals if there is a dispute between residents of both these groups. It's not as if every day that I lived in Framingham I saw the anthropomorphic representation of corruption standing on every street corner. However, I saw, heard, and experienced a few things which left me with a bad taste about Framingham in this regard.
I myself was the tenant in a landlord-tenant dispute. I could not afford a lawyer, but was able to get some initial basic advice at a free legal clinic. Two different lawyers, speaking indepently of each other on two different occasions, told me they had never before seen a case of one landlord violating so many of one tenant's legal rights. And this was at a clinic that specialized in assisting tenants with landlord problems, so they had seen plenty of these situations. Basically, it was just about literally true that the landlady had broken every law in the book. However, without being able to afford a lawyer to represent me in court, I did not fare as well as you might expect under these circumstances. I discovered too late that the landlady and her husband both had a lot of local connections, including some employees of the courthouse, who manipulated paperwork to my disadvantage.
At one point the landlady locked me out of the property, without benefit of a court order (which is required by law for this action), and even while I was still paying rent. Three times I sought help from the local police. Once I went to the police station, and discussed the issue in a general way, without mentioning any names, just trying to get an idea what help the police might be able to provide. I was told they could do nothing, and I should contact a lawyer.
Two other times, I went to the property I was renting and called the police for assistance in gaining entry. Neither time did they help with this. The first time, the cop was kind of a young rookie punk, who not only did not help me, but after having a buddy-buddy conversation with the landlady's husband, then basically ran me out of town, telling me he'd better see me headed toward the train station and back to where I was staying in another town while trying to resolve all this. The second time, it was an old veteran cop, who, I later learned during the court proceedings, was personally acquainted with the landlady. This time I had a court order to let me into the property--with a court order in my experience being like the Word of God to a cop, at least with a decent police department--and the cop still refused to instruct the landlady to let me in. The only way I eventually got into the apartment to retrieve my belongings was that the situation was still at an early stage when I was getting advice from the legal clinic, and one of their lawyers called the landlady and, um, persuaded her that it would be in her best interest to comply with a court order.
The sickening coup de gras in all this came in one of several court hearings. The landlady and her husband perjured themselves several times. One time the landlady was caught committing perjury when she contradicted herself during testimony. She had retaliated against my attempts to defend my rights through legal action, by bringing several bogus complaints against me. One of these was an attempt to collect on rent she claimed I had never paid. What had actually happened was that there was one last check I had used to pay rent just before the situation got so bad that it became clear that from then on I'd better send the checks by registered mail. The landlady had not cashed that check, and had used this fact, and the false claim that she had never even received the check, to try a few manipulative stunts, including taking me to court to retrieve that rent money. In court, she slipped up and acknowledged that she had in fact received the check. Then a few minutes later she slipped up again, apparently being confused about what she had said earlier, and tried again to claim that I had never given her the check.
Keep in mind that this particular incidence of perjury was not just a matter of the way each party in these kinds of cases will shade things his own way a bit. This cut to the heart of whether she even had a complaint against me. We're talking perjury here, as well as a false complaint, and she had been caught dead to rights. So what happened? The local-yokel magistrate simply admonished her, "Don't say that, because you said the opposite a few minutes ago," and continued with the hearing.
At the time all this happened, I was a student at Framingham State College. I didn't hear lots of detail, but I heard talk from other students here and there which gave me the impression that students fairly frequently had problems with small-time local landlords blatantly mistreating them, apparently confident in the knowledge that their tenants had little recourse because the cronyistic local legal system would take care of their own. Based on all of this, my advice to anyone who had to live in Framingham and planned on renting would be to stick with rental properties owned by larger real estate companies, preferably not locally owned. In this case, the big, faceless corporation, which will treat the whole thing as a business, nothing personal, is your friend, at least compared to the alternative.
What else? I knew a woman in F'ham whose car was stolen. The car was recovered, but the local police browbeat the victim into not pressing charges, basically telling her there was no basis for bringing any charges. Now, that's obviousl b.s. in the case of a stolen car. Though I can't know for sure what was going on behind the scenes, this really had me feeling suspicious that the car had been stolen by some local kid, and that, once again, the local yokels were looking out for their own.
I also knew a longtime F'ham resident who kind of marched to his own drummer, and wasn't really part of the local cronyism, but knew all about it from having lived there all his life. He had an interesting take on Framingham's claim to fame, supposedly being "the largest town in America" (which has been disputed, but anyway, Framingham likes to bill itself as such). This guy's opinion was that, despite the unsuitability of the town form of government to a place that is in reality more of a small city of 65k, the town form of government lends itself better to keeping the local politics firmly in the control of the leaders in the local network.
Okay, so you get the picture. I didn't see incident after incident of cronyism, but encountered enough to give me the definite impression that this could be a problem in Framingham for those not part of the local network. Now, you have to realize that probably most people who move to F'ham never have any problems with this. However, from what I picked up about life in that town, I would have to be concerned about the possibility of a problem. You just never know whether you might not be the unfortunate soul who gets into a dispute with a local yokel and finds the town's legal and political structure stacked against him. Tricky situation, because, as I say, the majority of transplants to F'ham probably never encounter such difficulties.
At any rate, besides that particular concern, Framingham is not a place I see as an especially appealing town. It would not be especially unappealing if not for the local politics, but it's just kind of bleh. Your basic large suburban town. Some nice neighborhoods, and some that are a bit faded. A downtown that has seen better days and is now filled with chintzy little stores, while the town's economy really centers heavily on the malls along rt. 9. Based on hearsay--and keep in mind that this is all it is, but this is what I hear--the schools in F'ham aren't as good as those in some other towns in the vicinity. Framingham would probably work fine for a lot of people. After all, we all have our own distinct situations. But it's not a town I would recommend highly.
Based on the criteria you have specified, a few towns fairly close to Framingham I would recommend checking out would be Natick, Holliston, and Hopkinton. Natick is a lot like F'ham, in the sense of being very suburban in character, with a lot of mall-oriented business, but it's nicer than F'ham in pretty much every way. Better schools (again, based on what I've heard), and phiscally more attractive. Basically, when it comes to the housing stock, take out the more faded neighborhoods in Framingham and you've got Natick. Also, despite being heavily mall-oriented, Natick does have a pleasant downtown area that has some basic shopping, and a local arts center.
Hopkinton is a bit rural and woodsy. It's a nice friendly small town that is becoming increasingly suburban but still seems to retain some genuine small-town character. Holliston is kind of like this as well, but less rural and woodsy, and maybe further along in the progression toward becoming purely suburban.
A bit of advice on your housing preferences. Your budget is on the low side for much of the Boston metro area, and for many of the suburbs to the west of Boston, which is genrally a rather affluent section of the metro. This, along with the fact that there is not a lot of new housing stock in the Boston area, may mean that you will need to compromise on the age of the house. You'll probably also find more possibilities if you are prepared to compromise some on the lot size as well, though there is a decent chance that you could find something the size you're looking for if you look in the right towns. Depending on how long a commute you can handle, some other towns you might think about are, Grafton, Shrewsbury, and Westborough. I don't know any of these towns in detail, but they are generally known as solid towns, with larger lots, or at least some neighborhoods that have these, along with some woodsy feel. They are also farther out away from Boston, and thus likely to have somewhat lower house prices than the near vicinity of Framingham.
Be aware that if you want something more urban or semi-urban, this will be difficult to find in the western suburbs, except very close to Boston. Given the size lot you are looking for, this does not sound like the case anyway. Judging by your specified criteria, I'd suggest checking Natick, Hopkinton, and Holliston if you want to stay close to Framingham, and Westborough, Shrewsbury, and maybe Grafton if you don't mind a bit of a commute.
Phew! Long post, but there you have it. Best of luck with your search.
Holden wouldn't be my first choice - may be a little off the beaten track for what you're looking for.
I'd suggest Upton, Grafton, West Boylston and possibly Shrewsbury and Northboro. All are within 35 minutes of Framingham, close to shopping, restaurants, etc but are suburban towns with open space.
For the price range under $450,000 there is enough on the market you would have some options - although this price range does sell very quickly.
One more thing: I just re-read your post and saw that you had asked about Holden. I know nothing about Holden, so if I can't say anything about the town, it's only for lack of knowledge, not because I would not recommend it. Could be a great town for all I know.
Wow! Thanks to you all very much! Ogre, your post was MOST helpful, no worries about it being long winded. I myself had a bad experience with "bad cops" when I was younger, who defended a toxic individual that wanted to make my life miserable. Also had this type of experience in the CT town I lived in. Cops knew the troublemaking youths down the road and we eventually had to move away from the harassment. So I know very well where you're coming from and truly thank you for the forewarning. Dreamworks thanks very much for the list!
It's still up in the air right now for CT or MA but I'm not without choices in MA it seems for my price parameters thankfully. Thanks so much for the replies.
framingham is a great town. Who told u otherwise? it has it's big town issues but as a whole very nice.
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