some advise please (Boston, Scituate, Newburyport: home, to buy, school district)

[claireb74]

Hi everyone, I am living in England and my hubbys job is taking us to massachusetts. He will be based in Newburyport and I have been looking at this area and it seems an expensive place to live. I know when we get over I will be able to look about better but could anyone please suggest somewhere that is affordable but also good for children so schools are important, also things to do but not city life.
thanks

[Valerie C]

Hi Claireb74
Newburyport has become a destination town, with all the trimmings you would expect. A very cute downtown with lots of restaurants, boutiques, and trendy little specialty shops. Home prices (whether to buy or rent) are higher in Newburyport than in any of the surrounding towns.

You might consider looking in the town of Amesbury, or for a top-notch school district, check out West Newbury (Pentucket Regional HS has a great rep). Groveland is within 20 minutes, Merrimac also. All of these towns are definitely worth considering, with things to do but definitely not 'city life', and all are well within 30 minutes to Newburyport.

[claireb74]

Thankyou Valerie, I will check them out, its just so hard and frustrating doing it from over here. I guess I am just too eager to get going and move.

[ScituateAl]

The state of MA has a great site called "commonwealth communities' that will give you all sorts of stats for each town. That said, they are indeed dry stats...the folk here can likely give the colorful insight once you narrow your towns down.

[Valerie C]

I think this is the site that ScituateAl mentioned:
Commonwealth Communities and the community area at boston.com is informative (though more commercial) as well: Boston Globe community profiles - Boston.com Some of the writing is dated, and somewhat slanted (more opinions than facts) but you are probably wanting to read up on as much as possible while you're over there across the pond. The non-forum area of City Data has great info, charts, demographics as well: http://www.city-data.com/city/Massachusetts.html