[marcin1786]

I say stratford

Its just as close to shopping as the rest. It has access to metro north railroad. The north end is on the same level as trumbull and shelton. As for schooling stay in the north end where schools are actually rated high, such as bunnell high school is a good school. The only downside to stratford is taxes but i highly recommend it otherwise

[IraqVetnowaMomma]

Trumbull is the most expensive of the three, but with the market now and with what you are willing to spend you'll have no trouble finding a beautiful home there. I don't know much about Shelton, but between Stratford and Trumbull, I like Trumbull the best. They have more of a community vibe. Parts of Stratford can be a little rough (mainly on the bridgeport border) but others rank right up there with Trumbull (lordship as mentioned above being one of them) If you care about "social capital" at all (some people that live in Fairfield county do) I would have to be frank and recommend that owning a home in Trumbull would probably give you the most.

[kidyankee784]

Since schools are not an issue, I'd consider Shelton. It's a town with a great quality of life, easy access to shopping, major highways, beaches and the country. Since you seem to like more rural towns, check out Huntington and White Hills (both very nice sections of Shelton) as well as Monroe- don't rule that town out. I don't see why you should spend the extra $$ to live in Trumbull when you can spend a bit less, have the same quality of life and close proximity to St Joes in Shelton or Monroe.

I know many people who graduated from St Joes. Most went to excellent colleges and universities, others did not. It is a wonderful private school which offers a great education. Kids who attend St Joes for the most part travel from Trumbull, Monroe, Bridgeport, Shelton, Orange, Easton, Oxford, Seymour, Newtown and Fairfield, which are all very convenient to Trumbull.

I agree that Trumbull is the nicest of the three, but lately Shelton has been exploding with corporations and businesses along Bridgeport Ave, and the downtown area is being cleaned up. Shelton is now being considered an alternative to towns like Trumbull, Milford, Fairfield, Orange and Monroe. While Stratford has its pluses, I'd be worried about resale due to the school district. I have heard that they are improving, as another poster noted.

Good luck.

[marcin1786]

The North side of stratford borders shelton and trumbull so any advantages they have in shopping (all i can think of is trumbull mall) is not more than a 10 minute car ride. Within 10 minutes you had 2 LARGE malls, (milfords post mall is now huge with recent expansion) and stratford has a ton of stores in itself. Plus, living in trumbull and shelton you DO NOT get access to the beach, you would have to pay everytime but as a STFD resident you get a town sticker on your car that permits it.

[kidyankee784]

Originally Posted by marcin1786

The North side of stratford borders shelton and trumbull so any advantages they have in shopping (all i can think of is trumbull mall) is not more than a 10 minute car ride. Within 10 minutes you had 2 LARGE malls, (milfords post mall is now huge with recent expansion) and stratford has a ton of stores in itself. Plus, living in trumbull and shelton you DO NOT get access to the beach, you would have to pay everytime but as a STFD resident you get a town sticker on your car that permits it.

There are public beaches in Milford, Bridgeport, Westport, etc.

[marcin1786]

Bridgeport lol...

[Movin2CT]

Thanks so much for all of the viewpoints. We came to form many of the opinions that have been voiced on this thread, and we've appreciated all of the insight from those familiar in with the area. We looked at houses in Milford, Stratford, Trumbull, Shelton and Monroe.

The houses we looked at in Milford were nice, but had smaller lots than we wanted... plus the communities we were shown seemed very cookie cutter. Cookie cutter and no lot just didn't work for us.

Trumbull had some nice houses, but we felt that there was a combination of: Owners who had unrealistic ideas of what their homes were worth in this market; older homes that needed a decent amount of work to seem like "home", and a few houses that made it onto our final list. In the end though, the taxes in Trumbull, along with the sewage special assessments and the First Selectman's seeming desire to raise property taxes even more took Trumbull out of the running.

We liked some of the houses in the Lordship area of Stratford, but hated the areas we'd have to drive through to get in and out of Lordship, so we nixed Lordship. Saw some beautiful homes in Northern Stratford, but again, it was mostly small lots, and since we have soccer players and dogs, a decent size lot was on our "must list". We did have a couple of houses in Oronoque and one in North Stratford on our final list.

Monroe was a nice area, we saw houses we liked, but eventually took it off our list because we wanted quicker access to the highways. It was a great area though, and I'm sure if we had looked at the town more, we could have easily found a house to meet our needs.

Finally, we ended up choosing a house in the Huntington area of Shelton. With today's real estate market, we were able to find what we feel was a great deal on a house that meets all of our criteria, is close to St. Joe's, and has a lot that is a little over 1 acre... plenty of room for both soccer and dog, lol. We liked the community, and truthfully, the property taxes really sold us on the town. I will say the differences between areas in Shelton amazed us. When we drove through some areas, it was hard to remember that it was the same town.

I think we'll be happy in our new home, and we're looking forward to settling into Connecticut. Thanks for all of the help!