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Hello, my husband and I are moving back to the Buffalo region after being away for about 10 years. Our main reasons for the move are job related, family, and the cost of housing is much better in the area compared to Maryland.
Since it has been 10 years, I am wondering if anyone could share their opinions on the following towns we are considering moving to:
Amherst/Williamsville
Clarence
Lockport
The topics of interest for me are: taxes, schools (we have a child), amount of snow, crime/safeness, shopping (such as a Walmart or Target), traffic.
I am not very familiar at all with Lockport and am interested in learning more about this area.
I admit that there are alot of questions that I have and appreciate any input.
Lots of threads if you want to read people's personal experiences in those areas, just use the search function. I can answer a couple of your questions, though.
The taxes for those areas break down like this (highest tax rate to lowest tax rate) -
1. City of Lockport
2. Village of Williamsville
3. Town of Amherst, Town of Lockport
4. Town of Clarence
Home prices break down like this (highest to lowest)
1. Clarence
2. Williamsville
3. Amherst
4. Lockport
"Crime" is probably the highest in Lockport, but it's hardly an issue in the city of Lockport and it's pretty much nonexistent in the town. Schools are good in all those places. Since you're only looking at areas north of Buffalo, snowfall should be pretty consistent throughout all of them. Most you'd have to drive to get to a Wal Mart or Target from any of those places is 20 minutes. Hope that helps.
Oh, and traffic is pretty much a non-issue. It can get congested on the main roads in Williamsville, Clarence and Amherst (like Niagara Falls Blvd, Sheridan Rd, Main St and Transit Rd) but nothing too bad and the highways are almost always fine.
I'd go so far as to say that whatever you remember from 10 years ago is more or less how things are these days. Not much has really changed or grown significantly.
Areas like Lockport and Clarence have a little more of a rural feel as they are just outside the real population center of the metro area. Williamsville is a nice village with an older suburban feel. Amherst is very broad and has plenty of nice areas that differ a lot.
As for your main topics, I would agree that all these areas do not differ enough in any of them to make one a deciding factor over the other.
I would suggest coming back and driving around all these areas and get a feel for them. Traffic is a non issue around here, and any of the suburbs have easy access to things like shopping. Any of those locations will be within 5 minutes of shopping for any basics (wal marts, grocery stores, etc).
My wife and I are trying to move up to Kenmore. She is originally from there. We will start off in Kenmore because of how close it is to the city, how affordable it is and its very walkable. We don't have that where we currently live in Maryland! Did I mention we're bring a 22 month old and one that is 21 weeks in the oven!
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