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Old 12-11-2007, 01:24 PM
 
9 posts, read 26,260 times
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We are a gay couple considering moving to CT, MA, or RI from St. Louis and need help in picking a community to settle in. I renovate homes to sell and He may be attending UCONN/Storrs, Harvard or Yale for his Doctorate, our other option would be near Los Angeles at Claremount.

Our main criteria is finding elder day care that provides transportation for my mom whose 92 and has mild Alzheimer's that lives with us. We would prefer a rural, family friendly community, "pun intended" within a half hour to hour of a particular Univeristy.

Our housing needs at first would be to buy a decent duplex he could live in and then a 300k-600k home we both would move into once I'm able to liquidate assets in Missouri.

My work needs would be a ripe market for renovating homes to sell. Ive been reading through the New England threads and am concerned about taxes, their affect on renovated home sales, the commute to these areas and the like.

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have to offer.
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Old 12-11-2007, 02:16 PM
 
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This site may be helpful, although hopefully someone on the forum can share recommendations from personal experience with a family member using elder day care:

Find the Best Adult Daycare in Massachusetts (MA) - US

I don't know that you'd find a very rural community within 1/2 hr drive of Harvard but Sherborn, where I live, is a metrowest suburb of Boston that is very quiet and pretty with lots of open space and is somewhat rural. We moved here because it was so beautiful and quiet. Plus with the Peace Abbey & an active Unitarian Church it seems to be a welcoming area for progressive-minded people. There is really easy access to the Mass Pike, and you can easily get into the city in 30 minutes---except during rush hour, when the commute time would probably double. There aren't a lot of multi-family homes here but there are a few. Homes would be at the high end of your price range. There are some gorgeous historic homes here as well. Further out from Boston you could also find quiet, rural communities. Berlin and Bolton are very nice, but driving from there would take longer. Re: your question about taxes, are you looking for property tax info? If so, you can find the property tax rates for many towns at http://www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dls/TaxRates/taxrate.pdf (broken link)
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Old 12-11-2007, 02:58 PM
 
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Thank You!
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Old 12-11-2007, 06:49 PM
 
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Hi dbmin,

I don't personally know of elder day care, but try calling Marian Manor nursing home in South Boston. They may be able to refer you to one. There isn't a rural area near Harvard, but Cambridge and Somerville might interest you. Alot of multi family homes to be found in those towns. I like Boston, use to live in the area. I am not familiar with CT. I do know a bit about RI. What town is the college you are interested in RI? I'm assuming you might be thinking Brown? If so, RI has lots of great towns near Providence. There's Tiverton, Bristol, Newport and more. I like RI alot.
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Old 12-12-2007, 01:21 PM
 
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Scarletfire is right--nothing rural within a half-hour of Harvard Univ. But people have different ideas of what's rural--e.g., someone once told me she liked Newton because it was so rural. Compared to Dorchester, I guess. By far the best location for family-friendly, rural community a half-hour's commute from a university (of the three choices you gave) is the Storrs UConn campus; everything is rural around there. New Haven and Cambridge--I don't think so (except that Lincoln, MA, really is rural and within a half hour of Cambridge--but very pricey.) But, the opportunities for buying and renovating houses would seem better in a metropolitan area than a rural one. Too bad you missed the great inflation of recent years but I guess there's still money to be made on buying, renovating, and selling houses. Boston architects have gotten fat on house renovations in close-in communities with lots of older houses, e.g. Cambridge, Newton, Brookline. By the way I don't see why property taxes should have an effect on your business--it isn't taxes that's caused a real estate recession; it's the foreclosure crisis. You could do a very good business in the New York suburbs, where property taxes are through the roof; people still need houses to live in. Taxes are not so bad in Mass, perhaps worse in Conn because they don't have the Prop 2-1/2 tax law, and worse in NH because there's so little state support for town budgets.
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Old 01-01-2009, 06:36 PM
 
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Try the North Shore (north of Boston on the coast). There are many very nice rural areas like Essex, Beverly Farms, Ipswich, etc. Pricey, but not too far from Boston if you are near a highway. Beverly Hospital runs an Alzheimer's day program called Spectrum.

As far as renovating homes: Many houses are on the market, but prices have been inflated for so long that people have an unrealistic view of what their houses should be worth and are upside-down on their mortgages. It's still hard to get a great bargain unless the place is really run down or bank-owned.

North of Boston is fairly gay-friendly, especially the younger folks who mostly accept gay marriage as a legal fact. Almost every high school has a well-attended gay-straight alliance. The anti-gay crowd gets loud, but that is only because they are feeling marginalized. =)

In conclusion, move to Mass. We are way more fun than RI or CT.
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