Relocating to MA from Orange County CA

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by Jkmia111

A new job in Marborough, brought us to Massachusetts. My wife works from home. We are looking for a place that is 30 minutes or less to Marlborough. Our children are grown but we want some thing that has higher odds of retaining property value, so good school districts are still preferred. We do not want anything that is very rural. We’ve looked at Concord which is pretty expensive but we can go up to 2 million there. We are also very open to townhomes in a new development in Sudbury. Any other communities we should consider? Would love to have things to do in the nearby vicinity such as farmers markets and community events. For that reason we assume Lincoln and Acton would not be a fit. Not sure if there are parts of Needham we should come sitter or Wayland? We heard the traffic can be quite tough for Wellesley.

If resale is a concern then I would definitely cross off some of these towns on your list. Go for something that has really broad appeal which IME means the town has these features (and you'll find these commonalities in the millions of "I'm moving to the Boston area and I don't know where to live" discussion threads):

-Easy access to Boston for commuting and social reasons
-Moderate density for a more suburban feel
-A well developed town center
-Easy highway access
-Public transportation options
-Highly regarded school systems

Most towns around here tend to have things that people are looking for like a well funded parks & rec department and often people like to have certain amenities in town like a hardware store and a grocery store.

We're in a recession currently and possibly looking at a deeper one and of course inflation is an issue so keeping an eye toward resale is a good idea. When you're facing the possibility of declining values you want to go with a location that has the highest demand possible as historically those places have maintained their value better. Simple supply and demand economics.

Based on your description of what you want, I'd focus my search on places like:

-Newton
-Wellesley
-Needham
-Natick

All of these towns are going to provide a pretty reasonable commute to Marlborough (the majority of traffic is actually heading in the opposite direction from you if you left from these towns). At worst, you may be looking at 40 minutes each way which is still pretty close to what you said you're looking for. I actually used to commute from Newton to Marlborough myself and while that was a number of years ago it was a pretty cushy commute by Boston standards.

Places like Sudbury, Wayland, and Concord in the last downturn didn't tend to fare quite as well as the towns I suggested because they lack at least one of the features I mentioned above or in most of these cases multiple of these amenities are missing. Sudbury in particular got whacked pretty good in the last downturn and took a while to recover.

Also, being willing to consider a townhome will definitely get you a MUCH nicer home in some of these towns compared to what your money would buy for a single family. That's mostly Newton I'm referring to though. Wellesley, Needham, and Natick don't really have townhomes that go up to that price point although who says you have to blow your whole budget on housing?

[hken]

If the 30 minute commute is a priority to Marlborough then I would narrow to Sudbury and Wayland (for the record I live in SoCal but own a rental in Sudbury and also lived in Lincoln). Sudbury has more commercial infrastructure...Wayland will have the convenience of being closer to Natick and Framingham. In your situation, something like those 55+ luxury townhomes next to the Stop and Shop in Wayland would be something that fits the bill.

Sudbury has not been a great property from an appreciation perspective but it's been a 'safe' investment. I bought in 2012 and tenants I get are all upper middle class families who have treated my home very well with low turnover. The millennials drove up Sudbury prices the past 2 years so I do think prices will soften but I don't see it declining too badly. It's a good suburb if you can hybrid work. The lack of a commuter rail and easy access into Boston/Cambridge is just going to be less of an issue as a lot of the tech/life science companies probably will stick to hybrid mode.

I disagree on Lincoln being too 'rural' because what it does have going for it is super quick access into Rt 2/95 as well as the commuter rail. My wife never found Lincoln too isolated (but Sudbury very isolated) because getting to Lexington, Burlington, Natick...all very doable. That's why we ended up living in Lincoln over Sudbury so I def wouldn't rule it out.