Family relocating, need help please :)

[Sadie181]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

I just spotted a rental in Needham a little more than 1/2 mile from a train station. It's 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms. The downside is that it's only got a 1 car garage and it's quite small at a little more than 1300 sq ft. They're asking $2800/month. The next cheapest single family rental currently in MLS in Needham is $5K/month.

I am in shock!!! $2800 for 1300 sq ft

I thought Seattle was expensive, we have nothing on you all. How far out of Cambridge do we have to go to get those costs lower?

Thanks!!!!

[shrinkberry]

I live in Cambridge in a 1,100sqft 2bd and pay less than the Needham rental by >$1,000. The scarcity of single family rentals in the more expensive towns is driving up the prices. Needham, like Newton, Winchester, Lexington, and Concord are all very expensive towns, with houses in the neighborhood of $500k+. In comparison to the Seattle area, this would be like trying to rent a SFH in the most expensive part of Redmond, Bellevue, or maybe even Mercer Island.

The good news is that there are plenty of other towns with good school districts but aren't nearly as expensive. Acton is a good suggestion. Also check out Reading, Melrose, Wakefield, Burlington and maybe Woburn. If you don't mind a duplex type situation, then Watertown might be an option. These towns are more like Bothell in terms of relative "niceness" and proximity to Boston.

In general, if I were in your shoes, I would focus on towns north of I-90 because these commuter rail lines feed into Porter Square or North Station, thus minimizing your husband's commute. Quincy and Braintree on the Red Line would also be an ok commute too.

Finally, I think the schools in MA are better than the schools in WA, so you can't really go wrong in any of these towns. Even the schools that aren't the *best* in terms of MCAS scores and other metrics are still very rigorous and will provide your children with a quality education.

ETA: The Boston area Craigslist is spammed by apartment owners and realtors and is very messy and hard to use. Try using the rental search in Zillow. Some of the listings may belong to property management companies, but at least it gives you a better view of the availability in each town.

[DaltoBoston]

Jessica,

What are the specs of the house you are looking to rent? Based on that I think we could make a better call on whether it is wiser to rent or go and buy. Here is why, if you are willing to give an hours time of transit, and your husband's place of work is close to T, then you can weigh the cities and see whether it is smarter to buy or rent based on location. I can state this, your rent of 2500 for a single family is higher than what I am paying for a single family house in natick even after I include my taxes and insurance. Granted it is a 50 yr old house, and I bought it in Jan.... but it was well maintained and it is 3br/2ba with 1900 sqft....

[ogre]

Originally Posted by shrinkberry

I live in Cambridge in a 1,100sqft 2bd and pay less than the Needham rental by >$1,000. The scarcity of single family rentals in the more expensive towns is driving up the prices. Needham, like Newton, Winchester, Lexington, and Concord are all very expensive towns, with houses in the neighborhood of $500k+. In comparison to the Seattle area, this would be like trying to rent a SFH in the most expensive part of Redmond, Bellevue, or maybe even Mercer Island.

The good news is that there are plenty of other towns with good school districts but aren't nearly as expensive. Acton is a good suggestion. Also check out Reading, Melrose, Wakefield, Burlington and maybe Woburn. If you don't mind a duplex type situation, then Watertown might be an option. These towns are more like Bothell in terms of relative "niceness" and proximity to Boston.

In general, if I were in your shoes, I would focus on towns north of I-90 because these commuter rail lines feed into Porter Square or North Station, thus minimizing your husband's commute. Quincy and Braintree on the Red Line would also be an ok commute too.

Finally, I think the schools in MA are better than the schools in WA, so you can't really go wrong in any of these towns. Even the schools that aren't the *best* in terms of MCAS scores and other metrics are still very rigorous and will provide your children with a quality education.

ETA: The Boston area Craigslist is spammed by apartment owners and realtors and is very messy and hard to use. Try using the rental search in Zillow. Some of the listings may belong to property management companies, but at least it gives you a better view of the availability in each town.

Great when someone knows both metro areas and can make comparisons.

Shrinkberry makes a good point that many school districts in this area that are not powerhouses are still good, and the towns where they are located will often have lower housing costs than the highly affluent towns with the very top-end schools. Some of Shrinkberry's suggestions for towns north of Boston do give an example of the tradeoffs you may want to consider. While it's true that commuter trains from most of those towns take you to North Station, and North Station is on the general side of Boston toward Cambridge, none of those trains actually stops in Cambridge. Taking public transit from North Station to Cambridge would involve either a walk of close to 20 minutes to reach the subway line to the main commercial districts in Cambridge, or several stops on one subway line and then a transfer to another. The exception would be if your husband were working on the far east side of Cambridge, which can be reached directly by transit from North Station.

On the other hand, the commuter train ride to North Station would be shorter than the ride into Boston from Needham or Natick. However, it's still approx. half an hour from most of those towns. Be aware also that Burlington does not have commuter rail service.

One of these towns that could be worth an especially close look is Melrose. Melrose is a middle-class family kind of town with a character that is a mix of kind of inner-suburban and a little bit urban. In other words, you can have a yard, but probably not a huge yard, and there is more local shopping than you'd find in many of the purely suburban towns. Melrose is also slightly less than 20 min. to North Station by train, so it could actually be possible to make the commute to Cambridge within an hour even with the several legs involved in the trip, depending on the locations of your home and your husband's work.

One suggestion I would also make is to check on whether your husband's employer provides their own shuttle service. Some large employers do have shuttles between their business locations and major transit hubs like North Station.

Here is a link to the transit system website: MBTA.com > Official Website for Greater Boston's Public Transportation System. Once you get the feel of this website, it could be useful in checking transit options from various locations. One service you might find especially useful is Trip Planner, which lets you enter starting and ending points and gives you transit itineraries between the locations, and will also let you know if there are no transit connections between those points. You'll find the link to Trip Planner under Rider Tools at the top of the main page.

It's also possible to do a click on the maps of the subway and commuter rail systems which will superimpose a map of the transit system onto a street map, so you can get an idea where the routes actually go, and where the stations are located. That click is on a tab at the top left of each map, labeled "interactive street map."