Westborugh Vs Northborugh, Holden, Shrewsbury and Grafton (Boston, Worcester: 2009, credit)

[mhk]

I would love to hear from people who have lived in these towns.

We just cant decide which town. Our main criteria is of course good schools. I know that all of these have good schools. I am not too worried about elementary level. I believe they are all similar. My concern is at higher school level.

We finally are about to nail it down to Westborugh. Although it is well concieved that you get less here compared to the other towns. We like the fact that there are nicer yards here and we hear that at high school level this is much beter that Shrewsbury or Holden or Grafton. Anyone here has any cmments on this.

Another driving factor of course is easy commute to both UMass and Boston. I just go crazy when I see people spending millions or living in much smaller houses just so that they can go few more ranks higher in school. But hey isnt that what I am doing here on a smaller scale? I could get a brand new or newish house in Holden or Grafton for what we would pay in Westborugh.

I dont like the fact that Westborough has such high taxes. It will be atleast around 600$ or more monthly for that. Add other expenses and then a mortgage.
And we can get brand new houses in Holden and Grafton for the same price of a 40 year of house in Westborugh.
I was eager for Shrewsbury but I just cant like any houses there. I am starting to get repelled from the cookie cutter colonials the new ones that are being produced in Shrewsbury, Holden and Grafton.

We are ready to take a older house in a good neighborhood with some mature trees hoping the house has some charecter. We will do the updates.

I guess I just rampbled. The whole house hunting s making me crazy.

Another thought is should we wait to see what happens after the 8K tax credit bubble.

I guess I asked many qns.. just confused.
BTW our baby is only 5 months old. We have ways to g before thinking High school.

[Lowerdeck]

UMass... Amherst or the med school or another one?

If you're only going to Worcester, but need to be in Boston too - then I'd say go further east to Westboro or maybe Northboro.

If you're going to Amherst, then stay west towards Shrewsbury and Grafton.

Holden to me seems a bit out of the way from everything. Even though it's really not.

[sblumberg]

I live in Grafton. It has a small town charm and the elementary level schools have been wonderful. It is true that as you get to higher grades (middle school on) Westborough is significantly better. In fact, Westborough is 16th in Boston Magazines 2009 ranking, ahead of many affluent towns close to Boston.