Life in Keene (Hanover, Swanzey, Chester: sales, crime, buying a house)

[dmblandino]

How is life (climate, crime, elem. schools, housing), in Keene? Why do most 3 BR houses there (even newer ones), have only 1, or 1.5 bathrooms? Is mold in houses a pervasive issue?
D

[GotBackHome]

Keene is firmly in the snow-belt for winter weather. being right up against the VT border (nearly), it's considered a bit.. remote from the rest of the state, although if you're focused going north to Hanover it might not be so bad. As I understand (no personal experience) the schools and taxes are better in the towns around Keene than in it.

how many bathrooms do you need? 3 bdrms isn't that big a house - my house here in MD has only 1.5 baths technically (we've turned the 1/2 off because we use it as a laundry and can't get to the toilet). Keep in mind that some towns base their assessments on the size of the number of bathrooms rather than the number of bedrooms, so it does lower the taxes.

[dmblandino]

Good points Wanna...! I'll have to look into how prop. taxes are assessed. Thanks for the post.

[briansol]

Look to the west a bit in the spofford/chesterfield area. Your money will go a bit further and it was one of the lowest taxes in the state.

Its basically dead center between battleborro and keene... 15-20 min each way give or take.

that's where i'm headed, eventually....

[karen_in_nh_2012]

I've lived in Keene for almost 10 years. I live in west Keene (up by the high school if you know the area at all) in a great neighborhood -- all single-family homes, est. 90%+ owner-occupied, no cookie-cutter houses. Don't know about the bathroom issue -- I have a 3-bedroom house with 2 oversized bathrooms (double sinks in both). Don't know how common that is.

Most houses in Keene are on city water & city sewer; in some surrounding areas (like Chesterfield, most areas of Swanzey, some areas of Marlborough & Troy) you would have to have a septic system and drilled well. I have zero experience with them -- they make me nervous so I haven't considered buying a house with them, as much as I would like more land.

Property taxes are high, but then they are everywhere in New Hampshire thanks to no sales or income tax. Crime in Keene is very low as far as I know. Weather, well, it's New England! :-)

Schools vary. Symonds is my local elementary school and apparently it is the highest-rated in Keene (I just got lucky -- I don't have kids so wasn't too aware of schools when I was buying), although I understand most are decent. Schools in neighboring towns vary a lot. Marlborough's elementary school looks to be good, Troy's not so much, Swanzey's I don't know. From what I understand Keene's middle school and high school are also good.

The infrastructure in this part of the state also seems to vary a lot. In west Keene, in 10 years we have had maybe half a dozen power outages (total in 10 years, not per year!) that have lasted an hour or two at the most (some just a few minutes). In some surrounding towns, power outages (especially in the winter) are relatively common. Since my furnace needs electricity to run, that would make me nervous unless I had a generator.

[dmblandino]

Thanks everyone, for your replies (esp. the longer, informative ones). Here's what I found:
1.Keene's prop. tax rate, on ave. of $30./assessed value seems justified by having high-performing schools, and low teacher-to-pupil ratios (Elem. and Middle schools).
2.It's a trade off; if you want a lower tax and therefore opt to live in one of the cities bordering Keene but then find that that cities' school doesn't compare as good to Keene's you're stuck. You either have to endure, move, or stay but send your kids to Keene, and pay tuition to Keene because your city has a school that you could use but don't. So then the (non-resident), tuition will in effect put you in a similar tax basis as if you lived in Keene. I'm going with Keene to be close to work, and a great church (Hope Chapel), they have Hope Radio 94.9 FM, which plays good contemporary christian music.