I know you are tired of this but pls advise me on moving to Boston (Newton: sale)

[annasttasiaaa]

It is my husband and I and a 2 months old baby! currently,we live in western mass. My husband is Geriatric and I am law student at BC so we live on one income. I'll need to live close to Boston downtown to do lots of internships. However, there are 2 issues here. 1- we are not sure if we'd like to reside in mass after 3,4 years from now. 2- we are willing to buy a nice home ( 3bd,2 bth) in a decent and safe neighbourhood but not to pay more than $550!

I am searching online in watertown, newton,belmont, jamaica plain,welssley and even natic. But I can not find any nice home for the price I can afford. I saw west rox and rosindale but i really did not like what I saw. I prefer to to use Tline to get to downtown (min commute) but I can do driving or use commuter line if that means a nice home in a nice neighbourhood.

Any suggestion on cities to search for home would be appreciated!

[brightdoglover]

It sounds like you would be better off in a condo, if you don't see anything you like for $550K on the T. (And a lot of towns on the T are not all that close to Boston, as in the commuter line).
It seems that buying a place to live might not be the right move, if you don't expect to stay more than 3-4 years. I know the recent mantra has always been to buy buy buy, but the old rule of thumb was not to expect to break even in a sale unless you'd been there about four years (considering closing costs and interest up-front).
If you have the income or assets to afford a house of $550K, it might be wiser to rent something that absolutely suits you, house or apartment, and re-consider when you finish school.
Do you mean your husband is retired? What is Geriatric?

[holden125]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Do you mean your husband is retired? What is Geriatric?

I took that to mean he was somehow in geriatric medicine?

Second the recommendation not to buy if you're not sure you want to stay even 3-4 years. There are a lot of up-front costs you won't recoup now that the guarantee of massive appreciation is over.

[felicitev21]

Well, yes, you may want to consider renting if you are unsure about residing in Mass. for a long period of time. Natick is not on the "T" as in red, green, orange lines etc but it is on the commuter rail. However the commute will probably run you about 40 min. And that's just to get to Back Bay or South Station you may have to hop on the T from there, depending on where in Boston you need to go. Rentals in Natick are expensive, you will be paying probably 1000 and up for a 2 bedroom. Wellesley is on the same commuter line as Natick, but Wellesley is extremely wealthy, I'm not even sure if they have very many rentals there. I'm not sure what the taxes are in Wellesley but they may be high. Both Wellesley and Natick are very nice areas to live and have good schools and low crime rates. Jamaica Plain is a very diverse area of Boston which is undergoing a "renaissance" if you will. There are many hispanic/latino-sorry I don't know what the PC term is-people who live there. You will also find a lot of college students there. The area is not terrible, it is the city so if you are from the country or the suburbs you may find JP (Jamaica Plain) to be noisy. It is does provide easy access to the T, and as you have a kid you may want to check out the school and education statistics for JP. You can find many rentals in JP and some very nice apts there too. I don't know very much about West Roxbury. I have heard that it has some "nicer" areas but that depends what you may be comparing it to. Like I said I don't know too much about it. I have been there and some of the houses looked pretty nice. The town didn't look dirty or anything, your best bet is to go check it out for yourself if there are houses you can afford in that area. The other cities that you mentioned I know nothing about. Hope this helps. Another area you may want to look at is Framingham, MA. It is located next to Natick and is on the same commuter line. It has many nice houses in your price range. Framingham is large and diverse, so there is some crime in the downtown and poorer areas but in the nicer areas you have nothing to worry about. There are also many rentals in Framingham if you choose to go that route. It has easy access to the Masspike and Rt 9 if you choose to commute by car to Boston. You could also take the Pike to Newton which is about a 15-20 min drive and hop on the green line at Riverside. Just some suggestions. Check out the Framingham link right here on the city-data website