Best places to live near Amherst/Deerfield (Northampton, Longmeadow: house, neighborhoods)

[marblmom]

My husband was offered a job in MA near Amherst. Our #1 priority is great public schools. After that, family friendly neighborhoods, good sports programs for the kids and some decent shopping/restaurants nearby. Our budget for a house would be about $600K. I've looked at greatschools.net for info on schools in Amherst, Northampton and Longmeadow. I hear good things about Longmeadow schools, but it doesn't sound like much else is going on there (no offense intended - I know nothing about it so I'm only going by what I've read!). We are even considering CT (maybe Simsbury area), but would we be crazy to commute that far? Can we get the same things closer? Thanks!

[wmass]

You would be crazy to pay CT property taxes. Longmeadow has good schools, but oty is a sleepy, somewhat snooty type of place. I'd focus on Amherst and Northampton, with a preference for Northampton for the other criteria you listed.

[Carefully]

Amherst or Deerfield are both great towns with great schools. $600K will buy a mansion. You can check out Sunderland or Leverett as well. Is your husband a Prof.?

[evergrn]

I'd suggest Amherst or Hadley. Both towns have highly-educated people and good schools. In terms of shopping/retail, you find things like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Barnes&Noble's all lined up along Amherst/S.Hadley corridor.

[katiet41]

In my opinion CT would be a far commute to Amherst. Your budget will allow you to buy in Amherst as well as Northampton, or as we like to call it, NoHo. It will actually allow you to look in many areas. Longmeadow is lovely, with great schools/sports programs, but it doesn't have the same shopping and dining that you will find in NoHo and Amherst, even more so NoHo. Deerfield is also lovely, but once again, not the same appeal that both Amherst and NoHo hold.