What's wrong with Marshfield? (Boston, Hingham: insurance, home equity loan, houses)

[Cubby60611]

My family and I are relocating to Mass and have our eyes set on the South Shore suburbs. We are a young(ish) family of three, my wife and I in our 40s and a 3yo. I am scouring C-D threads for some intel on places to live, and the same four usual suspects keep popping up - Hingham, Norwell, Scituate and Duxbury. But, for some reason, there seems to be a recurring theme of avoiding Marshfield, that it is undesirable. However, no one really states the basis for those opinions. We looked at a house this weekend in Marshfield, specifically in the Blackmount area, and it looks awesome - beautiful scenery, close to the beaches. Also, the schools are rated 8 or 9 out of 10, so can't see how the area could be that bad. What are we missing??

From a few posts on C-D, I am picking up on a bit of "class war" between Marshfield and its neighbor, Duxbury. Is this where the negative connotations spring from? If so, I should mention we are moving from Chicago. Although I am a white-collar worker, we do not do "uppity". In Chicago, everyone is a Chicagoan regardless of race, job, status, etc. We hope to find that same kind of vibe wherever we end up living in Mass.

Any input appreciated, thanks!

[massnative71]

What's "wrong" with it is that it's surrounded by more upscale/elite towns like Duxbury, Scituate and Cohasset so therefore the "stats" aren't going to be as jacked up in comparison. But you will be fine in Marshfield, I never met anybody who is unhappy there.

[porterhouse]

Nothing is wrong with Marshfield. It is a great town that is family friendly and still socio economically diverse. The schools aren't as great as some neighboring towns, but you also don't have as many entitled a-holes as in Hingham or Duxbury. There are always going to be trade offs. Norwell doesn't even have a beach, so tough to compare it to those other towns.

From your description, it sounds like you'd enjoy Marshfield or Scituate the most of the south shore towns.

[msRB311]

Marshfield is interesting. It's very nice if you want to be near the beach. Plenty of people live there year round, but many people also have beach homes there and are only there for the summer. There are more working class type people in Marshfield than there are in Duxbury, Norwell, Hingham. But there are wealthy people in Marshfield as well.

This happened about 3 weeks ago there:

https://www.boston.com/news/crime/20...cci-marshfield

I often hear people call Marshfield, MarshVegas.

[NewfieMama]

I have many friends in Marshfield and they all love it--some grew up there and have since bought in the town. If we didn't need to be a little closer to Boston (you know, back when we had to commute), Marshfield would have been very high on our list of towns when we were buying. Good schools, access to beaches, good restaurants--it's a great town!

[MrsRosencranz]

Heh, it's funny how old stereotypes prevail long after the people and lifestyle that manifested it has long gone..

I grew up going to a dinky little cottage every summer in Kingston This is back in the 60's. Awesome little community that's selling for a premium now, but just a collection of summer cottages and a fine little beach.

We rarely went next door to Duxbury cause that was where all the old Yankees lived and you felt kind of out of place just driving through it. That town was so special they didn't even have any retail or restaurants to speak of and they certainly didn't have EGADS, a bar.

No, you had to go a little further north for that, specifically, Marshfield, where you would find dive bars and honkytonks right there on the beach. Marshfield was where you could drink on the beach. Or at least hit the bar and then walk a hundred feet to the beach. Or at the cottage and then walk 20 feet to the beach. And those honkytonks where frequented by bikers who would occasionally roar down the main drag along the beach. It was where my reprobate sister and her friends would steal off to in order to do a little underage drinking.

And of course there were normal families living there and summering there but it was considered trashy because Marshfield had bars. And lots of drunk driving. Probably drug deals. It was the party town on the South Shore.

Now it's stylish to drink at upscale restaurants right on the beach. And pot is legal.

PS. I forgot to mention the Marshfield Fair. Horse racing and gambling and all kinds of nefarious people coming into town to have... FUN.

[mdovell]

Marshfield didn't allow arcade games....

I grew up on the south shore. None of these areas are really diverse. It doesn't happen there. There's a fair amount of drugs in the area that's for sure. the issue I see now is flood insurance. Look up floodfactor and then the maps around the areas. Norwell would be the best then (don't confuse it with norwood it's further north).

The trouble is many simply had jobs in boston and banked the money in housing with the idea of the closer you are to boston the more the houses are. Commuter rail also helped boost prices in the 90's...but now. Now you can be anywhere in the state if not the country and pretty much work out of "boston"

Most of those I graduated high school with have left the area. Price were too high after graduation to afford so they left. The sad thing is not so much development but where it came from. Small shops closed left and right over the past 25 years. I find much more smaller businesses in western mass and ct. Keep in mind some of the retail. Kingston has the mall but there's also the plymouth colony place, hingham has the derby shops, it's been changing.

A long long time ago I crashed a coworkers party in Marshfield. I would have thought it was the backwoods of Louisiana. Even today I have not been bitten by so many mosquitos...

I'm surprised you leave Hull out of consideration..

[msRB311]

'The trouble is many simply had jobs in boston and banked the money in housing with the idea of the closer you are to boston the more the houses are. Commuter rail also helped boost prices in the 90's...but now. Now you can be anywhere in the state if not the country and pretty much work out of "boston"'

I am confused by this. What does this have to do with Marshfield, are you saying people dont desire to live in Marshfield because it's a further drive to Boston?

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by msRB311

'The trouble is many simply had jobs in boston and banked the money in housing with the idea of the closer you are to boston the more the houses are. Commuter rail also helped boost prices in the 90's...but now. Now you can be anywhere in the state if not the country and pretty much work out of "boston"'

I am confused by this. What does this have to do with Marshfield, are you saying people dont desire to live in Marshfield because it's a further drive to Boston?

Houses on the shores (south included) continued to go up especially when the commuter rails were made (and boat for hingham for that matter). Now there's nothing wrong with housing prices going up. You can cash out a home equity loan and use it for other things, sell it and move to somewhere cheaper and pocket the difference etc. But the trouble is most of the actual jobs in these towns don't really pay enough to live there (outside of town jobs). You can't tell me some head cashier at a Kohls is going to afford a 500K house. This isn't really a working class area again that's fine but it just isn't sustainable after people start leaving.

My point is what caused prices to go up just doesn't exist anymore. Why bother living close to boston fully knowing the jobs are remote? Some people think that suburban areas boomed with the pandemic and frankly that isn't really the case everywhere

1) Most people that worked in boston with decent jobs didn't really live there to start with

2) Many of these jobs can become remote

3) Foreign students aren't coming back and driving costs up

what happened to gateway cities when those industries declined ? Prices dropped, other people moved in and those with money left. It's nearly the same here. Why be close to something that you don't have to be close to?

Let's say things reopen. We then go to a 60 minute drive from marshfield to boston which is normal at this point in the morning. Now it goes to 90 minutes. Who is wanting to drive 90 minutes each way for a job that can be done for the same pay somewhere else?

Consider this for how things have gone
https://www.redfin.com/MA/Pembroke/4.../home/16406006

I'm not saying it's a bad house but from the outside it looks like a double wide trailer. 350K? I paid half that for 60% more space. But you have a view of water which some think causes the price to be that much higher. It's nowhere near any attractions other than a pond. No walkable downtowns, no movie theaters, no transit stations, no shops/restaurants...o yeah you have to deal with septic too.

When you have reasons to be near an area and then it's taken away it can lead to an exodus. In gateway cities job losses led to less of a reason to be there. Layoffs led to property values dropping, other people moved in and then non profits and government offices came in that eroded the tax base and then it became dependent on the state. Many people also use public school performance to validate higher prices, especially in the 128 belt. So again if there's less of a reason to be there (virtual learning) it means less will show up.

There's a difference between employees working from home and actual population increases. Same with students (that would have left anyway) and an exodus from cities.

[BostonBornMassMade]

kind of hickish compared to neighboring towns. Thats how I felt the one afternoon I spent significant time in Marshfield.