Semi-rural options outside Buffalo (New York, Hamburg: how much, houses, buy)

[MurphysParadox]

When are you moving? Within a year (hopefully? No specific time frame)
Where are you coming from? Northern VA (Fairfax County, near Burke)
Why are you moving? My job is 100% telecommute, my wife wants more room and land.

Will you buy or rent? Buy a house for below $400k (around $300k would be ideal).

Are you married or single? Do you have children? Married and have an almost two year old daughter
Do you prefer public or private schools? Public is preferred (we have nothing against private except the cost)
Do you have pets? One dog, two cats, sundry fish tanks; wife wants to raise pygmy goats, chickens, ducks.
Do you want or need a yard? 5+ acres (with trees would be awesome)
Are you keeping a car? Yes; two in fact.
Do you prefer bustling activity or calm and quiet? Locally calm but within reasonable distance of activity. We don't club or attend rock concerts, but we like fine dining and fairs and farmer's markets. Plus when my kid gets older, she'll probably enjoy museums and parks and music events.

What do you want to be close to? We shop at Whole Foods, we go to Farmer's Markets, we see the occasional concert in DC, we want forests and natural parks. We're somewhat typical early-30s liberal suburbanites that lean rural. Sounds like being within reasonable driving distance from Buffalo isn't too hard (especially given what 15 years of driving around northern VA has done to my expectations of reasonable driving time).

Requirements? High speed internet for my job, top quality public schools, the aforementioned land with the ability to raise some animals. I am quite aware of how small an intersection these needs create, buy we don't have a hard time limit and the only part that is flexible is the schools to some degree. Obviously there internet is my livelihood.

I'd like some advice about good towns/areas to consider, good school districts, places to look over, or anything else, really. I doubt we'll move again before our daughter is in school and she may have a sibling eventually, so the good schools and decent sized house are both goals.

Thanks!

[ckhthankgod]

Perhaps rural parts of the Lewiston-Porter SD just north of Niagara Falls, which also has ArtPark within that area. Maybe rural areas of the Starpoint, East Aurora and Iroquois SD's as well. Hopefully others will chime in with more specific suggestions.

[Grey_Mama]

Lockport / Pendleton / Wheatfield. Starpoint schools (which include these 3 towns plus 2 others) are excellent.
The area is within 30 minutes of downtown Buffalo or Canada, but a rural feel.
Lewiston is a cute village, but a little further from Buffalo.
Niagara County taxes are somewhat less tan Erie County.
You will love Wegmans for groceries!

[MurphysParadox]

Thanks for the replies so far! I'll check out options in the suggested areas. We have Wegmans down here too, so they will be perfectly fine as well. Farmer's Markets are nice but they do have their limitations.

Any other suggestions? Anyone know how prevalent the high speed internet options are in the semi-rural areas (cable or better, including FIOS of course; satellite, wireless, DSL, and direct LOS are all incompatible with my work, unfortunately).

[gwgirl80]

Pembroke, Corfu, Wheatfield, Akron, Springville, Collins, Brant, there are many locations. Western NY has easy access to lots of farm land when thinking about it.

[Linda_d]

I see people are talking mostly of Niagara County and some east, but if you want pretty and rural (ie, semi-rural/exurban, etc) I'd consider the Southtowns. Being that my family is originally from North Collins, I'm partial to the area. The Southtowns get a lot of snow, but it's hillier country with more woods and more of a "country" vibe than the areas north and east of the city. It's also very convenient to downtown Buffalo as well as points east and west as I-90 cuts directly through.

Best school districts (alpha order): East Aurora, Eden, Frontier, Hamburg, Orchard Park.

Best villages: Hamburg and East Aurora. Both are quaint, picturesque villages, but Hamburg has a great downtown, has all kinds of shopping/dining/entertainment facilities just to the north (McKinley mall area), has its own Wegmans (which will make you forget Whole Foods), and is much closer to Buffalo. It's also on the edge of the agricultural area called the Eden Valley. Farmers markets, farm stands, etc are common, especially south on US 62. I'm a fan of Hamburg. It's as far north (ie, as close to Buffalo) as I would ever consider living, and one of the few places in Erie County that would even tempt me to live there.

Two or three miles to the south or southwest or southeast of the village, and you're pretty much in areas that are zoned for agriculture. The western part (closer to Lake Erie) is flatter and better for farming. Further to the east, you get up into the hills in East Eden, Boston, New Oregon, etc. This would include areas like Evans, Eden, East Eden, Boston. Some of the main roads are US 62 (Gowanda State Road), US 20, US 5 (along the lake shore), US 219 (expressway), US 75, and Old Rt 219.

School districts in New York State are not limited to following municipal or even county boundaries, so you might have a house in the town of Eden where the kids attend Hamburg schools, so you have to check which school district the property is in if you decide you a particular one. The Hamburg school district stretches at least as far south as a couple of miles south of Rice Road in the town of Boston, as one of my cousin's lives out that way and his kids attend Hamburg Central.

Hope this helps you out.

[MurphysParadox]

Awesome, thanks Linda_d. My wife had begun to tag houses down around Hamburg and East Eden because it is hillier, which is what she'd rather choose, over the flat farmland up north. Definitely impressive yearly snowfall numbers, but we don't expect to need to leave the house on a daily basis and, anyway, that's why people own snowblowers right? Good to know some more about that area and the options around it.

[Linda_d]

Originally Posted by MurphysParadox

Awesome, thanks Linda_d. My wife had begun to tag houses down around Hamburg and East Eden because it is hillier, which is what she'd rather choose, over the flat farmland up north. Definitely impressive yearly snowfall numbers, but we don't expect to need to leave the house on a daily basis and, anyway, that's why people own snowblowers right? Good to know some more about that area and the options around it.

Newcomers to the Southtowns buy a heavy duty snowblower (or a tractor with a blade) and something with AWD/4WD before or shortly after they buy their homes; long time residents already have them. One of my brothers has lived near Rtes 75 and 20 for 20 years and only had an issue with snow last year when the whole Southtowns got buried last November. That was a freak storm, like the Blizzard of 1978 that hit Buffalo and the immediate area and closed the city down for a couple of weeks. Neither event is likely to be repeated in decades.

Snow in the Southtowns -- and most of Western New York -- tends to be what's called lake effect snow, and the biggest snow totals occur when Lake Erie isn't frozen but a strong cold air mass moves into the area. The air mass sucks up moisture over the warm lake, hits the significantly colder land, especially the hills to the east of the lake, and dumps its excess moisture as snow. What areas get hit with snow depends upon wind direction. How much they get depends upon the temperature differences between land and water, wind velocity, and whether the winds shift. The lake effect snow tends to form narrow "bands" or streamers that oscillate across the area from north to south and south to north depending upon wind direction. In a LES event, one location can be buried by 6 inches of snow in a couple of hours while it might be sunny a mile or 2 away.

PS The Southtowns are home to Kissing Bridge ski area over in Glenwood (off Rte 240). Lots of people are into snowmobiling, too, and there are literally thousands of miles of trails throughout WNY, but especially south of Buffalo. If you get a lot of snow, you might as well make the best of it.

[bmd69]

Lockport got just as much snow as Elma. It really depends on the year��

[newred5]

Bilzzard of 1977