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I think the "not getting much" in Newton mentality is more about sticker shock and not knowing the market than it is about snobbery as some suspect. How often do you read, someone who plans on moving here from out of state, only to have their hopes dashed when the find out the cost of living in one of these utopian communities.
Yes, I never really thought it was so much about snobbery as about the vastly different expectations engendered when one is coming from Atlanta or Houston or the midwest or whatever.
But to some extent there is some snobbery there. Over the past few years I've seen a good number of very nice looking 4 bedroom colonials, not right on the Pike, with over 2,000 square feet available in Newton for $800,000. I just have a hard time understanding why people think that's not "much" house. Clearly people are thinking their $800,000 entitles them to some vaster amount of space, maybe with a four-car garage.
And, to my harsh Puritan streak, that smacks of the excess and sense of house entitlement that permeates much of America. I hear people saying they only want very new construction, or this type of deck, or private baths for each of the kids, and I really start to wonder what makes some of these people so special that they think 2,000 square feet in Newton is beneath them. I mean, I know Harvard Ph.D's living in small nondescript studios in Watertown.
I feel a lot more sympathy for the people who can only afford $400K or $500K, and even that's a stretch. They have some decisions and tradeoffs to make. But when someone has $800K to spend and isn't OK with a lovely home in one of the more expensive towns in the area, I find my "entitlement" alarm going through the roof.
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Originally Posted by Beachcomber4
Being from NYC you have a different frame of reference, one that makes you smile at housing prices in Boston. I think you should be the voice of reality for anyone who is lamenting the high cost of living in MA.
Although I cringe at the "from NYC" phrasing, I think that's probably true and I'm kind of grateful for it. Boston really does seem like a great deal, relative to NYC.
I do recognize that Boston is a very expensive area. I spent years wondering how I'd figure out how to afford either area, and hearing about people buying virtual mansions for $200,000 in other metros. But I made up my mind I didn't want to live in those places, so I just accept it. I think having more moderate expectations and seeing the $800K house in Newton as a very nice house is better than having expectations for a house that are unrivaled among normal people in human history.
Although I cringe at the "from NYC" phrasing, I think that's probably true and I'm kind of grateful for it. Boston really does seem like a great deal, relative to NYC.
I do recognize that Boston is a very expensive area. I spent years wondering how I'd figure out how to afford either area, and hearing about people buying virtual mansions for $200,000 in other metros. But I made up my mind I didn't want to live in those places, so I just accept it. I think having more moderate expectations and seeing the $800K house in Newton as a very nice house is better than having expectations for a house that are unrivaled among normal people in human history.
Ah your post reads true New Englander and not a speck of NYC !
I could not agree more on all counts.
I am familiar with that that entitlement mentality as I saw it when we attended some open houses and listened to the critiques of some couples. Who needs bedrooms big enough for ball room dancing? And why can't a couple of kids share a bathroom? I am sure there are many successful business people in this world who learned their time management and negotiating skills by growing up in a typical in the day, 1 bathroom home.
I'm a believer in bedrooms are for sleeping. TV's, video games, computers and friends belong in a common area where parents can monitor and be part of their lives.
I don't think there any "stigma" about multi-family houses. It's just that they are completely different forms of housing than a single family. It's like thinking there's a stigma to a houseboat versus a land house. Just plain different. The multi-family house is not financially in your total control (unless you own the whole thing, in which case you have tenants and landlord life, plus, you are sharing walls or floors or driveways, etc. Again, not total control.
Zoning prevents anything except single-family houses in many areas, especially where there's a bit more space. This might have been a good idea back when someone might run a tannery or brewery in their back room, but has created a sprawl dependent on cars. Again, no stigma, but different types of housing and ownership.
I felt so burned from people in my condo mess in Cambridge, and so tired of people problems at my job, that when I come home, I want to shut the door and have aesthetic/audio/financial/everything else control. Maybe someday I'll live in a condo situation (well checked out by a lawyer!) but I preferred to take the financial hit for a single family here in my intolerant middle age after years of apartments and city buzz.
Those multi-families in Belmont and such towns are hardly compromised housing- they are quite expensive! The only problem is what I've mentioned, of condo or landlord-tenant life.
And $800K should buy anyone quite something they'll love in most towns, even Weston. That's not a budget, it's an invitation!
...if there is an aversion to 2-family houses, although there may be an aversion to 2-family, SIDE-BY-SIDE homes. Boston and surrounding communities like Somerville are loaded with 3-decker homes, although I realize that is not necessarily the preferred living arrangement today. Woe be to the unfortunate person living on the bottom floor of a triple-decker; he/she'll need the patience of a saint, and some ear plugs, in order to sleep at night.
Kudos to those who mentioned Belmont as a good source of 2-family homes; they are quite beautiful, and fairly suburban, but the catch is that they can be quite expensive, even for just 1/2 of a house.
I understand the less-bang-for-your-buck sentiment in regards to Boston; your money truly doesn't go as far here as in other states, and you do get a bit less house for it. But then again, your 3 children don't need individual bathrooms, either..
I grew up in Newton and have plenty of friends who grew up in two-family homes there. Newton has a reputation as a uniformly rich town but the northern part of Newton varies dramatically from the south. $400-500k will actually get you a single family with one bathroom in the Nonantum neighborhood, maybe in Auburndale as well. West Newton has plenty of two-families and smaller homes. $800k goes a very long way in Newton, despite what some people say. Yes, there are places like Chestnut Hill, Waban and Newton Highlands where you can't buy anything for less than a million but there's more diversity in housing stock in Newton than most people give it credit for.
Coming here, a lot of people get sticker shock and feel that if they have $800k they're entitled to much more than they can get in an inner suburb in MA. Honestly, sometimes you have to readjust expectations. I believe that community around you is more important than the house itself. I'd rather have a small house in Newton where there's actual diversity, tons of good restaurants and very convenient access to the highway and the city than go out to Lincoln and get a mansion on two acres of land in the middle of nowhere.
I grew up in Newton and have plenty of friends who grew up in two-family homes there. Newton has a reputation as a uniformly rich town but the northern part of Newton varies dramatically from the south. $400-500k will actually get you a single family with one bathroom in the Nonantum neighborhood, maybe in Auburndale as well. West Newton has plenty of two-families and smaller homes. $800k goes a very long way in Newton, despite what some people say. Yes, there are places like Chestnut Hill, Waban and Newton Highlands where you can't buy anything for less than a million but there's more diversity in housing stock in Newton than most people give it credit for.
Coming here, a lot of people get sticker shock and feel that if they have $800k they're entitled to much more than they can get in an inner suburb in MA. Honestly, sometimes you have to readjust expectations. I believe that community around you is more important than the house itself. I'd rather have a small house in Newton where there's actual diversity, tons of good restaurants and very convenient access to the highway and the city than go out to Lincoln and get a mansion on two acres of land in the middle of nowhere.
Agree completely with everything. I do think Auburndale has come up in price as compared to The Lake because it's a bit more attractive aesthetically than The Lake.
A lot of the reason Chestnut Hill, etc., are so expensive is that the sprawling Tudors and old Victorians you find there are all very, very large homes.
Now I understand better where people are coming from. The only thing that is still not clear to us is the part about "not having complete financial control over your part of the house" in a two-family home. Doesn't each family own a part? Isn't that done separately? I understand not having complete control in terms of who your future neighbor might be (as current owner might sell to lunatic); but financial control? Why financial?
In any case, I found the "class" and "entitlement"-related discussions quite interesting. I am one of those who have been called "a snob" in the past on a few American discussion forums, I believe mainly due to culture-related misunderstandings and incompatibilities.
It took me a while to understand why I was supposed to be " da snob" when I would witness Americans all over the country expecting, in the most casual and natural manner possible, enormous living spaces, 1 bathroom per living being, family room, office room, play room, dog room, exercise room, billiard room, thinking room, crying room, make-up room, you get the idea. (OK, I'll take the thinking room out, just to live up to the snob label those people were bent on applying ).
And always, always SEPARATE, single family house, accompanied by tons of privacy, which my cultural lenses were invariably translating "mysanthropy" or "secrecy".
It would be hard to describe what this scenario looked like to a cultural outsider who grew up in one of the most dense and collective cities in Europe, in small apartment/condo situations, surrounded by very closely placed neighbors who in time became like a second tier of family members, the kind who would have the key to your house every time you'd leave town, just in case. I could hardly have imagined a truly happy childhood without neighbors like my grandmother's, living right across the hallway, everybody sharing food every time something yummy was being cooked, etc.
Needless to say I went through quite the culture shock when I arrived in the US and where a vague and hurried "Hello" from a distance was pretty much as far as a neighbor would normally be expected to go.
I also remember a funny anecdote back in my country. A 15 yo I knew at the time was once invited over to a friend living in a single family house. She was quite shocked as she had never met someone living in a single-family house in the city. She was utterly convinced that "city" people (to be read "classy people") do not live in single family homes. Elegant living was apartment living. "Single-family houses were for ... hicks", she said.
It just goes to show the relativity of snobbery...and how really candid it can be at younger ages
As for the American patterns of living, I eventually came to accept that this was not snobbery, just an incredibly distorted sense of entitlement. Not because people were inherently "bad" but because of the unique history and geographical location of this country. It was as simple as that. My American husband, born and raised in the South, innocently started out family life with the typical local expectations: large house, yard for the kids, storage space to rival a warehouse or else where are kids gonna put the legions of made-in-China toys?...Etc. Virtually all of our friends with kids here in Atlanta (minus one, Eastern Europe + French) live like this.
I am not sure what I did, I may have been overbearing at times, I admit it, but I managed to curtail that view of "family life" and impose my own "crammed" one. I called it "judicious use of space" and "can you please cover all your walls, up and down, left to right?"
So those expectations eventually went away.
In Atlanta, the land of "living large", our kids were born in a townhouse/condo (a relatively nice one, for that matter, and close to the city, but a townhouse sharing walls with neighbors left and right, nevertheless). For the long term, which never happened, they were expected to share a room as I would have made them do that even if we had owned 10 additional bedrooms. I always thought that sibling giggles before falling asleep at night create lifetime ties, so there.
For the first year of her life though, our second born ended up sharing a room with us, more precisely she slept in our bathroom as her constant moves in the crib were keeping us up all night.
We must have been the only Atlantans to sleep a baby in the bathroom, but she's still whole. In the South they make bathrooms like little studios on their own anyway, so we concluded "temporary space problem solved".
It seems to me that this Spartan (by Southern standards) living arrangement in Atlanta must have prepared us a little too well for Boston. Or has it?
I am not sure what happens in the heads of those transplants who think an 800,000 "budget" will not buy "much" in Newton, but we saw some really beautiful, RENOVATED apartments in two-family houses in Arlington, significantly larger than what we had in Atlanta, to die for, in our - maybe still uninformed - view.
Only to find out that ... hmmmm...we may become the proverbial "hicks" by choosing one of those.
This reminds me of a joke by an American stand-up comedian:
"I went to the doctor and at the end of the visit he asks me: have you noticed before that your eye is slightly above the other one? ...Nnnnoooo...but thanks for making me feel self-conscious about it for the rest of my days!".
Ultimately, we really hope this is just a discrepancy caused by vastly different definitions of what "good living space" is and not something concrete we are missing (such as inherently bad neighborhoods or shabby house with hidden structural problems, which is something that DOES scare me about the old houses of New England).
Many thanks again for all the thoughtful replies, they have helped up tremendously along the way. Come Nov. 1, we will know more - as we will finally visit Boston for the first time and we'll take a look at a few places to rent (most part of two-family houses). Oh, well ...+ sigh.
Glad to hear it Syracusa. If you do want to recreate small-space, in-city living conditions you could look for the ubiquitous triple decker homes around here. Living in those definitely gives the neighborly feeling that you're talking about.
@Holden: You're probably right about Auburndale being more expensive than the Lake. If anyone is still reading this, Nonantum = The Lake (there's no actual lake, it's a neighborhood). Just wanted to make that clear.
I lived in Auburndale when I was a kid (through 2nd grade). I have fond memories of it. If someone wanted to live in Newton and commute to Reading, it would have the quickest access to 128. It's a great little neighborhood, very quiet. We moved out because my parents thought some of the neighbors were trashy and if my mother couldn't locate us in 5 minutes, she was convinced we had fallen into the river.
Now I understand better where people are coming from. The only thing that is still not clear to us is the part about "not having complete financial control over your part of the house" in a two-family home. Doesn't each family own a part? Isn't that done separately? I understand not having complete control in terms of who your future neighbor might be (as current owner might sell to lunatic); but financial control? Why financial?
Each family owns, and has financial control over, its unit, but there must still be agreement on how common areas are handled. For example, things like snow removal and maintenance and repairs on the roof, heating, plumbing, driveway, yard, fences, any damage to the building or property from anything else, including weather, fire, etc.
Where there are two owners, you need some way of breaking the tie if you can't reach agreement on an expenditure. Some multi-family homes are set up as a corporation (like a condo association) with a monthly assessment for upkeep of common areas, but it really depends on the arrangement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
I am not sure what happens in the heads of those transplants who think an 800,000 "budget" will not buy "much" in Newton, but we saw some really beautiful, RENOVATED apartments in two-family houses in Arlington, significantly larger than what we had in Atlanta, to die for, in our - maybe still uninformed - view.
Only to find out that ... hmmmm...we may become the proverbial "hicks" by choosing one of those.
I agree completely with all your thoughts on sharing space. In New York City, many a baby has slept in the bathroom, even in recent years. And sometimes the tub is in the kitchen. I knew a woman who shared a smallish Manhattan bedroom with her husband and baby, and for half the year, her mother stayed there too.
Again, I've personally never had any problems in two-family houses. Some people have, I suppose. Whenever you have people you don't know well in that kind of close proximity, it can either go well or not so well. My experiences, and those of my friends and family, have generally been good. Since you're used to apartment living and have had the experience of the townhouse near Atlanta, there shouldn't be any real shocks for you.
Syracusa, obviously I don't know you at all, and I'm sure this move is causing you tremendous anxiety (not least because you've said you don't like uprooting), but it may do you good not to worry quite so much. My reading of the thread is that people have largely said positive things about the multi-family houses in the towns inside 128, and others have expressed reasons why some people in Mass., as in Georgia, would prefer a free-standing house. I don't see anyone suggesting that you'd be the "proverbial hicks" but if you are, then I am too. So welcome to the club!
Renting in a 2- or 3-family house will probably be very helpful to get a sense, if in a limited sample size, of how they function in practice.
I know Arlington very well, so feel free to ask if you have specific questions about any particular locations.
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I don't know..
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