NH or ME? (Manchester, Concord, Merrimack: sales, real estate market, crime)

[blueydson]

This website is a Godsend! I just stumbled upon it today and I havn't been able to tear myself away from it. My wife and I have been wanting to move to New England for years, particularly New Hampshire or Maine. For years I've been reading up on the two states and running numbers to make sure that the move is doable. Even with all of my reading I have never come upon a website or forum with as much direct input as I have found here.
Basically, my story is that I currently live in Eastern Pennsylvania with my wife and daughter and we have always had an interest in moving to Maine and have visited many times and have always loved it. I know the story of Bostonians moving in and things changing and I understand it with New Yorkers and New Jerseyans moving in and changing things in Eastern Pennsylvania also and I know that no place is perfect as all places have their problems. Basically I am looking to move to a place where I can get work as a teacher, raise our daughter in a more rural setting where there arn't as many worries and threats as we are starting to have in this area such as gangs, murders, etc. I know that housing is not cheap in Southern Maine and New Hampshire but most housing stock that I have found sets on a larger lot of land in my price range than around here. Also, I love the proximity to both the wilderness of the North of both Maine and New Hamsphire as an avid fisherman and to the ocean but yet still within range of cities like Portland with numerous immenities as necessary. Basically, I am looking for opinions on regions and towns in both states. I am trying to get as much bang for my buck as I can in the best area possible. Like duh, who isn't right? Anyways, I am thinking Seacoast or Lakes Region New Hampshire or Southern Maine. I have leaned toward New Hampshire of late due to the lower taxes and less socialist governmental structure but understand that property taxes are quite high in some areas and I currently researching tax rates in the areas in which I am interested. Not that these are the only areas that I will consider but simply for a little more focus. Basically, I am a teacher, my wife has a Bachelors Degree in Social Work but never found work in the field as she is not fluent in Spanish which is imperative evidently in our area more recently. So we won't bring down huge amounts of income and our daughter is turning 7 this month so my wife will need a flexible or part-time job to work around our daughter or possibley an afterschool program. Any information on living in, teaching, part-time or flexible jobs, or afterschool programs, or anyone who's found themselves in a similiar situation as Arlo Guthrie says would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much in advance.

[Annabelle]

I lived in southern Maine for 9 years and have lived on the seacoast of NH for 9 years as well. NH wins hands down in all cateogories...schools, community offerings, no income tax, etc., etc., etc.

[PaddleOn]

I live in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. I've been in New Hampshire 22 years.

My observations of New Hampshire overall:

-- Pretty, but not gorgeous like out West. But much nicer than PA, I would guess.
-- Beautiful fall
-- Historically conservative, but recently went Democrat
-- No income tax, no sales tax . . .
-- . . . which means terrible social services if you should ever find yourself in need.
-- Diminishing professional employment opportunities north of Concord. Weak economy in the north country.
-- High property taxes in the small towns that have no industries.
-- Winter is wonderful if you embrace it. Learn to ski!
-- Hot humid summer and getting worse each year. But the larger lakes remain cool and refreshing.
-- Everything south of Concord feels like a suburb of Boston.
-- There is a teacher shortage in some subjects (math, science). With older teachers retiring, perhaps you will both find jobs in teaching.
-- Quality of schools can vary greatly from one town to another due to reliance on property taxes for school funding.
-- Seacoast: expensive, crowded in summer (Hampton Beach is undriveable in summer). But there are many lovely towns within 10-15 miles of the coast: Exeter, Newmarket, Durham, etc.

My thoughts about the Lakes Region:
-- Many beautiful clean lakes
-- You can be within 30 minutes of Concord or less, so you will have access to jobs and services in Concord but can come home to a lovely, cooler rural area.
-- Ski areas are 30 to 45 minutes away
-- Very central: you have easy access to Boston 1.5 hrs, seacoast of both Maine and NH 1.5 hrs, Montreal 4 hours, Portland Maine 2 hours. So you can live in a rural area but not feel isolated.
-- Lovely small towns
-- Homes are cheaper than in Concord and south
-- Very little traffic, no crime, stressfree.
-- Things (stores, friends) can be far apart, but distances are easily traveled. To go grocery shopping you may find yourself driving over lovely back roads, past lakes.
-- The New Hampshire personality is not known for its warmth.

I feel I have good quality of life here at low cost (but partly because I bought my house at the bottom of the real estate market in 1993). I am surrounded by beautiful landscapes and recreation opportunities---and it's all free (except for skiing). If you're an outdoors person, you can have a very good time in this area with little or no money. Hiking, boating, swimming---all free. (Okay, some people pay to got to state parks, but natives know the free places.) In my town, with my mortgage, I could easily live on $30,000.

Since there are no jobs in the wilderness areas of northern New Hampshire and Maine, your best bet is to live somewhere that is within reasonable travel distance to both your work and recreation. I find the Lakes Region to be perfect in that sense.

Few people can afford to live on the Maine coast. But if you can make day trips to the Maine coast several times a year, you may be satisfied, as I am. In the Lakes Region I find that natural beauty and outdoor recreation are a part of my daily life, not something I have to travel many hours to. If you live in Manchester, you will not have that sense. Even Concord has no good lakes nearby, nor mountains. And if you go too far north you start to feel isolated and have to travel farther to services.

In sum, New Hampshire has a lot to offer someone who lives in eastern Pennsylvania. I would much rather live here than in PA.

If you would like to send me a private message, I would be glad to answer your questions about specific communities or anything else you would like to know.

[blueydson]

We have mostly visited ME but have been through NH but hopefully will visit more this summer. I can say that I lean more toward NH for financial reasons and it's mix of open space and commericial space, and it's proximity to the sea and the mountains. Not that ME doesn't have all of that but I would enjoy a state with less of a tax burden and less of a socialist bent.
Eastern PA is not what it was, not that any place really is what it was but it has gone downhill and is becoming prohibitive for a family on a teachers salary which doens't keep up with the real estate market and the increased crime making it all somewhat meaningless.
Thanks
Chris

[rabbitlover]

http://www.nh.gov/hr/employmentlisting.html (broken link)

[nhyrnut]

Originally Posted by rabbitlover

http://www.nh.gov/hr/employmentlisting.html (broken link)

Got to love the state Jobs, Crappy pay but Awesome benefits. Just be careful. Thanks to our( I.M.O. ) HYPOCRITE Governor the state workers MUST JOIN the union and pay dues. So On-top of the low pay, The state makes you pay for the right to work for them now. A few Workers have VOTED out the Union. But most where forced to join. It takes more to kick them out than get them in.

[Pawporri]

I live in the Lakes Region. We moved here from Tennessee and I have not seen a Hot humid summer yet. I love the 4 seasons and the Lakes are beautiful. New Hampshire is one of the lowest tax states in America and Maine is one of ther highest.


Carrie

[Mark S.]

I noticed some pretty sharp differences between NH and Maine.

For the most part, NH homes and neighborhoods tend to look more cared-for, cleaner, and well-kept. There were exceptions, of course. (Berlin, NH was icky.)

Most smaller towns in Maine still seem to be hanging onto their smalltown identity. There are still a lot of home-owned shops and stores. NH, on the other hand, seems to have FAR more strip malls, chain stores, etc.

In my experience, NH people were generally polite but much more reserved. Mainahs on the whole seemed more genuinely friendly and personable.

Maine, while poorer, seemed to have a more down-to-earth sense. NH seemed much more touristy, more artsy/hippy, and much more conscious of "being New England."

Folks in NH seem to have an odd fondness for personalized license plates on their cars. I've never seen so many in my life.

[blueydson]

Mark,
Thanks for the great info. I would say that from my experience with visiting both states that your generalizations hold true.
I like the idea of life being cheaper which leans me toward NH due to taxes but also real estate is more costly which leans me toward ME but again where the truely cheap real estate is is in the more remote sections of ME which I really don't have so much of a problem with but some of those towns are more run down as one might say and I think I would rather ease myself in to the whole scenario which I've been thinking about for years and so that leaves me with Southern ME or Southern to Mid NH or basically Lewiston south to Kittery or Portsmouth over and up to Laconia approximately.
Basically, I'm a teacher so my wage won't differ drastically and so it's important to find an acceptable spot with fair priced real estate and lower taxes to help alieviate my meager salary unless I could find myself something else which I am qualified to do that would pay more so as to make it worth my while. My wife would be looking for any type of job with those of greater flexibility being most likely due to our daughter and the fact that she is only in first grade and so someone needs to be able to be home with her as necessary unless we found a workable afterschool program or something along that line until either myself or my wife was done with work. We want the locale to be safe and the people to be nice but they need not be outgoing.
All of this makes me lean toward the lower taxed locations of Southern to Mid NH and now where for the next question. I have had the town of Merrimack mentioned to me as a good choice.
So is my thinking on or off? What do you think?

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by fishinginasuit

So is my thinking on or off? What do you think?

Well, in our experience the biggest hurdle to living in either southern NH or ME is real estate prices. We just couldn't afford the real estate prices in southern New England, so we concentrated mostly northward. You might not be in the same boat, so it's hard for me to comment.

Since you mentioned Lewiston, I would definitely urge you to check it out before you moved. Lewiston has a bit of a reputation for being a rundown, dying town, and it is the one place in ME where there has been some pretty serious racial tension. I actually saw a documentary about it on TV.

I'm not a local, so I only know what I saw in the doc, but according to it: The problem seems to be that a sizeable number of Somali immigrants moved into town, and they supposedly have a reputation for not working but simply living off welfare and increasing crime. I must say that this does not meet with my own experience of Somalis, who are not only devout Muslims, but hard workers. Most of the "problem folks" I saw in that TV documentary were not, in fact, Somalis, but African Americans from the inner cities of Boston, New York, etc. who had moved up to Lewiston. But again, I may be wrong. I only know what I saw in the TV doc, and it very well may have been biased. Your best bet would be to check it out first and talk to people who do know it firsthand.

If I had to recommend places in this part of the world, based on nothing but my own experience and research, my favorite places I've seen so far are Presque Isle, Fort Kent, and Farmington, ME and Plattsburgh, NY. The northeast kingdom of Vermont was certainly gorgeous. I LOVED it. But the real estate was a bit beyond what we could afford.