Best towns for newly-retired couple north or northwest of Boston? (Lynn: low income, 2013)

[monocle]

Of course we won't be sightseeing every day of the week, so we'll want to live in a nice area where we feel comfortable and where we have convenient access to restaurants/shopping.

I've browsed through the real estate listings for Concord, and it would appear that condos & townhomes that meet our needs are priced way outside our budget.

I think we're going to end up doing some driving in any case, but that's okay. There are so many great sights to see in the area, I just want to make sure we've got a "home base" that's in a good location to start with.

[gf2020]

Depending on whether your retirement income is based on a pension or dividend income, you should consider southern New Hampshire as a destination. Access to Boston from Nashua or Salem is virtually the same as some North Shore locations and the cost of housing and overall tax burden may be considerably less.

[Beantown_mama]

I agree that the North Shore towns of Manchester, Beverly, Marblehead, Salem are all nice. The are also accessible to the city via the train. Concord also has a nice downtown but I think the $400K pricetag may be too expensive (and that probably also prices you out of Manchester and Marblehead too). Salem may fit your bill - it has a lot of history (House of Seven Gables is there) and the housing prices are lower because the schools aren't so great. Another town that is convenient to a lot of nice areas, and is a little cheaper, is Waltham. It has a few colleges in the town so there is a lot going on, and pretty convenient to many areas in the west that are beautiful but a little pricey. There are also a lot of nice restaurants in Waltham.

You should probably stay in Mass a week and just take a look at all the towns. The wonderful part about Boston in general is that most of the suburbs have a real character to them, because they started out as individual towns, not suburbs of Boston.

Are you sure you want to move here to retire? COLD and SNOWY winters!!!! Most retirees go the other way!

Good luck!

[Cato the Elder]

I see a SFH (free standing "condo" with no fees) at 78 Grant St. in the Concord Depot neighborhood listed for $445,000. It's a little small for a family at 1130 sq. ft. so it's reasonably priced for such a prime location. It even has a walk up attic. They are out there.

[Newdaawn]

I would check out Newburyport, MA or even Portsmouth or Rye NH. I LOVE Portsmouth. My daughter lived there close to town for a while before moving to Dover NH. Even from Dover they go to Boston quite often, which is about an hours drive, or just a bit more during comuter hours. Another alternative, if you don't want to drive right into Boston, is to drive to the Malden MA mass transit station. I don't know if you have ever driven in Boston proper, but it can be daunting. Boston is not a well laid out city for cars. Nothing like more modern cities. People seem to like NH because of the fact there is no income or sales tax.

[brightdoglover]

I have a friend who retired to Portsmouth, and she loves it. Walkable, waterfront, restaurants, good arts scene and plenty of volunteer/arts stuff. An easy shot down to Boston area. Great idea!
Winters vary wildly up here. Last year we had a record of something like five feet of snow. This year we had a record of seven inches all winter. I had my heat off most of March. Very unusual.

[monocle]

How bad does the weather get during a typical winter?

[Valerie C]

Living on the seacoast usually means that there is less snow than further inland, due to the ocean's warming effect. While the snowbelts of MA & NH can get 9-14" snowstorms rather frequently, the coastal towns might get 4-6". The real problem with winter storms and the seacoast areas are high surf and beach erosion. Power outages are a real threat, and the last few years have seen multi-day outages in wide areas due to 'freak' storms (ice storm 2008, wind storm 2009, Halloween Snowstorm 2011). As BrightDogLover says, this past winter was unusually dry. The largest snowfall we had (in southern NH) was back in October 2011. The previous winter, we had snow-covered ground from day after Christmas through late-April (with an April Fools Day storm for good measure) The year before THAT was mild, with less than average (but now a snow-drought like this past winter).
Here is the noaa chart for Boston snowfall records, scroll to the bottom. Last winter, 81" of snowfall. This winter? 9.3.

Boston Monthly Snowfall

As you can see, a 'typical' winter can be anything but....

[brightdoglover]

For me, snow wouldn't be an issue if retired. Right now, I have to get on the road to get to my job even if there is a blizzard or something (hospital work). But if retired, I could sit back, watch the snow out the window, and the next day the roads would be cleared and when sun hits the asphalt, snow melts quite easily.
That said, the previous poster is right. There is no such thing as a typical winter. It does seem to me, after some 35 winters here, that it either snows once a week or only once in the winter, depending on the jet stream and all. Winters have gotten less and less cold, in my observation, and summers more and more humid, if not outright hot.
"If you don't like the weather in New England, wait a minute."
But then, snow/cold doesn't bother me, except for driving to work. I wouldn't want to live somewhere with eternal hot weather, retired or not.

[accufitgolf]

Were I moving back to that area and looking to stay close to Boston, I would consider along the I93 corridor with attention to places that have rail service but also close to T stops.

I suggest you take a look at Andover (where I lived), North Andover, North Reading, Reading, Wilmington and that general area. Many folks that live in those towns commute to Boston daily.

I also agree with the greater Newburyport are but that is starting to get a bit far away from Boston.