Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > New York > Rochester area
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 09-24-2006, 06:26 AM
 
116 posts, read 620,135 times
Reputation: 112

Advertisements

Our family is moving up in a couple of weeks and will be looking for a home. We have kids and really have three main motivations, not in this order:

1) East of the city
2) Newish home
3) Quality schools

We had originally looked at the three Ps but for the same cost (about 190-200k) and taxes as a place in fairport or pittsford that would be an old house, we can get a new or newish one, and probably larger, in Webster. Since commute traffic is not much of a concern, how are the schools in Webster? Also, how is the "community"? It's snobby as hell to say, but the place I currently live in is pure middle class and I want an upper-middle kind of community. Let's say that Pittsford is upper, since it is the most expensive place, I want something close to it but a little more affordable and "down to earth"...so basically, how would webster be compared to a spot like fairport, not only in quality of schools, but the kinds of people around? That's about as gently as I can pose the question

We want the kind of place where it's patently expected that a child will graduate from highschool and go to university and those who don't would be a scant minority.

Also, in regards to the house, would there be any gotchas in this area? I realize it's on the outskirts of development, whereas it's nigh impossible to find a new house in Fairport, so traffic will get worse for Webster (if it ever does in Greater R) before the closer spots, but what other considerations are there?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-24-2006, 09:00 AM
 
5,265 posts, read 16,532,772 times
Reputation: 4325
Webster is the fastest growing town in Monroe county and actually, all of WNY. There are probably more new homes there than anywhere else in the region. Webster is a really nice town. It's right on Lake Ontario and still has a lot of open space with apple orchards and farms in the eastern area of the town. I don't know if you could really call the whole town "upper class", like you could Pittsford, but there are definitely plenty of upper middle class new neighborhoods in the town. In 2003, one of the "Homarama" (an annual new homes show that lets the public tour newly built homes in nice neighborhoods) sites was in Webster, and it was a beautiful neighborhood with houses overlooking the lake that were all priced above $500k. In Webster you can probably have the upper middle class kind of feel you are looking for, without the snobbiness associated with "The P Towns". The schools are great too, and that's one of the reasons the town is growing so fast.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2006, 12:00 PM
 
116 posts, read 620,135 times
Reputation: 112
Quote:
Originally Posted by i'minformed View Post
Webster is the fastest growing town in Monroe county and actually, all of WNY. There are probably more new homes there than anywhere else in the region. Webster is a really nice town. It's right on Lake Ontario and still has a lot of open space with apple orchards and farms in the eastern area of the town. I don't know if you could really call the whole town "upper class", like you could Pittsford, but there are definitely plenty of upper middle class new neighborhoods in the town. In 2003, one of the "Homarama" (an annual new homes show that lets the public tour newly built homes in nice neighborhoods) sites was in Webster, and it was a beautiful neighborhood with houses overlooking the lake that were all priced above $500k. In Webster you can probably have the upper middle class kind of feel you are looking for, without the snobbiness associated with "The P Towns". The schools are great too, and that's one of the reasons the town is growing so fast.
Thanks, now _I_ am somewhat informed

Are there any caveats with those positives, like maybe it's at risk for getting swamped with too many low-tax base people (we've seen that a bit in birmingham...apartments pop up in a nice area, offer little tax base, and suck down the high worth of the schools)?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2006, 12:46 PM
 
5,265 posts, read 16,532,772 times
Reputation: 4325
I mean, the only real caveat is the high property taxes. They tend to be higher in Webster than most of the western suburbs and also places like Henrietta on the east side. Nothnagle.com lists the annual tax bills for all of it's listings, and in looking at real estate throughout the region over the past several months, I've noticed that Webster tends to have higher taxes than most of the other towns. For many people it's obviously worth it though. You definitely won't see any low-income or subsidized housing in Webster or probably any suburb of Rochester. The former mayor of the City, Bill Jonhnson (who finally left last year and was replaced by the much more intelligent Bob Duffy who actually cares about the community) tried for years to get a lot of the suburban towns to build low income housing so he could "export" poverty from parts of the city to the suburbs, but that didn't happen, and Duffy wouldn't try anything like that.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-04-2006, 12:30 PM
 
266 posts, read 1,192,187 times
Reputation: 127
We are looking for what seems like the exact same qualities in a neighborhood, JWIlliams. I am really hoping that someone can answer whether or not the schools are as good in Webster as they are in Brighton and Pittsford? A lot of our choice of neighborhood will be affected by the school district...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-05-2006, 09:05 PM
 
5,265 posts, read 16,532,772 times
Reputation: 4325
Webster schools are excellent. They may not be quite as good as Pittsford and Brighton, but they definitely aren't bad, not at all.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-08-2006, 04:28 PM
 
266 posts, read 1,192,187 times
Reputation: 127
Default i'm informed... a question for you! :)

eeep, so what do we do... go with the house we like best, looking in all of these areas, or try to stick with one particular area? We are feeling pretty overwhelmed. Right now, we live in a very rural (too much so for our tastes) area, but very much enjoy the large amount of green space and privacy (we back onto a field). I think any of the suburbs would work for us in Rochester, as they all seem to be no more than 10-15 minutes away from the city... here it is more like half an hour for us, plus VERY conservative "good 'ol boy" values reign... not really up our alley!

i'm informed, you are a great source of info... if you were us, with two daughters 5 & 6, already doing music and dance, and with us as parents wanting the best education for them yet not really a snooty area... where would you choose?

(DON'T WORRY, not like I would get mad or hold you to anything if we followed your advice... just you seem to know the area so well).

THANK YOU!!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-08-2006, 07:29 PM
 
5,265 posts, read 16,532,772 times
Reputation: 4325
I would choose either Webster of Henrietta. Webster is the more affluent of those two, but it is still a very down to earth area, and has great schools. It's also right on the lake, which is a big plus for many people. Henrietta has lower taxes and is more diverse than Webster, and it's also centrally located in the middle of Greater Rochester. A lot of people choose Henreitta because it's the major commerical suburb in the area, many of the local high-tech companies are actually headquartered in Henrietta and there is a huge research/medical/commercial cluster in Northern Henreitta, which is also the home of RIT (Rochester Institute of Technolagy). Henrietta would probably have more semi-rural housing opportunites than Webster too. But the most sound advice I can give you is to take the drive up there and see which area fits you best for yourself, that's the only way you can be sure of where it is exactly that you want to be.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-09-2006, 07:42 AM
 
266 posts, read 1,192,187 times
Reputation: 127
Thank you very much - we will have to take another drive up. I think we saw everywhere except Webster and Penfield... only had limited time. The good thing is that we have until next summer to figure all this out.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-13-2007, 09:06 PM
 
3 posts, read 12,678 times
Reputation: 11
Great info...about the Roch. area. Our family is also relocating to the upstate area within the year. After checking out most of the area suburbs this past summer, we think we have settled on Webster. After reading all these posts, I feel even more sure of it. Thanks for the input and best of luck to all with their decisions. It sure is overwhelming!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:




Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > New York > Rochester area

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top