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.
My family and I (boy aged 13 & girl aged 9) are relocating for my job to the US next spring / summer (2011), I will be traveling full time around the US but need to spend regular time near Albany.
We would appreciate any help / tips / information about nice family friendly towns with goods schools and an active community.
Ideally we would like to be south of Albany within 1 hour. We enjoy outdoor sports and would like to be close to water for sailing (happy to travel upto an 45 minutes for sailing)
At first we will be renting approximate price $1,800 per month (4 bedroom house) but we would like to pick an area that we can purchase in after a year or two.
There are many nice areas that meet your criteria. I suggest you draw a 40-50 mile radius around Albany and research the areas you might be interested in. Should you find an area that looks like it might fit your needs, you can ask posters specifically about an area or use the SEARCH function on the ALBANY forum.
There are a lot of people who can help you but they might need more specific information.
For example, if you are interested in skiing, snowboarding, winter outdoor sports you might want to travel north of Albany. Do you want a walkable downtown? Or do you want a few acres in the country? Arts and Culture?
Behind Boston and along with the Syracuse metro, the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metro has the second highest percentage of people of Irish descent.
With that said, you might like places like East Greenbush and Delmar. Further south you might like places like Saugerties or Kingston. Chatham and Kinderhook might not be bad either.
I wouldn't recommend Kingston. It's a mini city. There are neighborhoods, but it isn't a community. It's actually quite dangerous in some places. My fiancee taught at the high school and he was constantly getting students that had been arrested and had weapons...That's where all of the shopping and chain stores are. To live though, i highly recommend Saugerties. That's where I grew up and it's a beautiful, friendly, old fashioned feeling town. There are a lot things for kids including theater (woodstock and rhinebeck mainly), community sports, book clubs...It's a town that your kids will be able ride their bikes around for hours and you won't have to worry about their safety. It's a wonderful place.
I visited Niskayuna last weekend and I really liked it, seems to have nice areas and schools, can you please give advise on typical rental prices 3/4 bedroom house (single family), average monthly bills (Electric / Gas / Heating / Etc).
If you move into the area are your childern guaranteed a place in the local schools or should we put their names down for a place.
Any advise / tips welcome....hope to start looking around for a rental property in spring 2011
I visited Niskayuna last weekend and I really liked it, seems to have nice areas and schools, can you please give advise on typical rental prices 3/4 bedroom house (single family), average monthly bills (Electric / Gas / Heating / Etc).
If you move into the area are your childern guaranteed a place in the local schools or should we put their names down for a place.
Any advise / tips welcome....hope to start looking around for a rental property in spring 2011
cheers
Irishdemo
Niskayuna is arguably the most affluent community, in a general sense, in the area. They have their own school district and it is very good. Old Niskayuna is more walkable and is close to the Upper Union area of Schenectady.
Loudonville in the North Colonie SD, is another very nice community. Guilderland also has some very nice areas.
irishdemo, since you may be looking about an hour south of Albany and you like to sail, here are some ideas... I'd say that puts you somewhere along the Hudson River Valley halfway between New York City and Albany. There is plenty of wonderful sailing along the Hudson and down to Manhattan ...you can sail right up to the Statue of Liberty..and lovely marinas along the way as well. This past summer I had the pleasure of sailing up the Hudson River from Manahattan thru the locks and up to Lake Champlain- what a treat that was!!!
The Hudson Valley area from Albany to the south is dotted with a string of small "villages" along the river- very old and historic places. IMO, the prettiest are about 45 min-1 hr south of Albany and about 30 minutes north of Manhattan. They are along both sides of the river, lets see how many I can name...and if I can put them in order...on the proper side of the river...heading south from Albany, on your right (west) is Coxsackie, Athens, and Catskill. Hudson is to the east. I would not live in any of these towns. Then there is Cementon and Germantown which I do not know very well. After that comes Saugerties and Annandale-on-Hudson. Then Kingston and Rhinecliff to the east. Rhinecliff and the slightly more inland Rhinebeck are very nice- in fact Chelsa Clinton (you know Bill's daughter?) was recently married in Rhinebeck. From here south I am more familiar with the east side of the river- very beautiful and (mostly) lovely areas - Staatsburg, Norrie Heights, Hyde Park, then there is Poughkeepsie which is NOT so nice. New Hamburg, Wappinger Falls, and Beacon are classic Hudson River Vally villages. Newburg, on the west bank, has a nice waterfront but otherwise stay away! Cornwall Landing, West Point (!) and Highland Falls to the west and Cold Spring and Garrison to the east are spectacular down past Stony Point- but across from Stony Point is Verplank (not recommended- this is home to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant) Peekskill is pretty as is Croton-on-Hudson. (how am I doing so far??) Haverstraw, Ossining, Tarrytown, Dobbs Ferry and then you head down into Younkers and right on out into the Atlantic Ocean if you wish!
I moved to Albany about 2 years ago and I have had a lot of fun exploring the towns along the river- there are numerous historic sites and old mansions to visit.
Ummm...Niskayuna is quite nice...but not exactly an "active" community IMO, but I have not lived here too long- The place I really like, and wish we had made home, is Saratoga- it is about 45 minutes north of Albany. Great community, plenty to do, affluent, artsy and horsy. Gets a bit crazy in the summer during horse racing season but it's better than being bored to death in Delmar.
Unfortunately the workday traffic between Saratoga and Albany can be pretty bad.
You might take a look at my previous post where I gave a "trip report" of our time in Albany (we are moving again soon out of the area).
Hope you enjoy the region- New York City is only 2 hours by train or 2 days by water- the world is at your fingertips!!!
If you move into the area are your childern guaranteed a place in the local schools or should we put their names down for a place.
Irishdemo
No problem getting children into public schools, just have to go to school and register them. Obviously bring transcripts from previous school.
Heating/Electric utilities will depend on a few things, so it is hard to give you an estimate (type of heat, age of house, etc.)
Hi Folks, thanks for al your replies and comments.....we are still busy looking at different areas, it's not an easy decison to make given our freedom to choose where we want to live.
Could anybody please provide us with infomration on Cliffton Park...main questions, schoold distrcit is it good, better or worse then Niskaynua, walkable down town, resturnats / bars, activitities for family and kids, property prices and options compared to Niskayuna.
I'm in the same situation. I need to move to Albany too and I don't know anything about NY, but thank to God a found this page and here I found a lot of comment and people that help me. Another page that can help you and will give you an overview of the city, public schools, crime rates (very important), realtor and other things, is this link Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed, or Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed is helping me a lot. I'm not decide yet, the place where I want to move, but Clifton Park for me sound very good and look very nice. I can give you more information later when I visited Albany. Good Luck Tom and if you have information that I can use please reply me.
Last edited by Yac; 11-29-2010 at 07:30 AM..
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.
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.
Niskayuna - Cost of Living
