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Old 07-16-2008, 08:23 PM
 
1 posts, read 7,187 times
Reputation: 11

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I am planning on buying a house in Bellingham. I want to know your opinion good or bad(is there anything). I see that the schools are not that great, Are they going to imporve? How much is the property tax? Is there a good public water system and sewerage system? How about crime rate, Water quality?
What is the average single family house cost? How is the resale going to be in 5 years incase I need to sell the house.
I greatly appreciate if you can give your prompt opinion.

Thanks,
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Old 07-16-2008, 08:34 PM
 
Location: Massachusetts & Hilton Head, SC
9,894 posts, read 15,461,978 times
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Do a search on this forum for Bellingham. Here's one of the previous threads:

//www.city-data.com/forum/massa...ellingham.html
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Old 07-19-2009, 11:59 PM
 
2 posts, read 13,321 times
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I actually lived in Bellingham for a while and loved it there. Bellingham is one of the last town around 495 that has room to develop. The surrounding towns are already crowded and overpriced. There has been a few home developments in last few years drawing young professionals into the area. In my neighborhood, there were many SAHM's with young or school aged children and those who sent their kids to the public schools were happy with their choices. There were also parents who happily sent their kids to nearby private schools. Parents of public school kids have only good things to say about the school. From all three sides of my house, there were children under age of 5. All the kids play together and especially in the summer, they were out and about in each others yards. The homes and large and lots are decent in comparison to what would get elsewhere.

Water and sewage is public and is excellent.

Air is great, wide open spaces so very fresh.

Crime rate - I'm not sure, but no issues for my neighborhood.

Values have dropped in current market, amazing prices, I can't imagine it not improve as houses are such great value.

In my neighborhood...houses start at 500K, and some costs 700K to 800K to build. So it really depends of the neighborhood.
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Old 07-20-2009, 12:27 PM
 
Location: New England
914 posts, read 1,800,982 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cory30 View Post
I actually lived in Bellingham for a while and loved it there. Bellingham is one of the last town around 495 that has room to develop. The surrounding towns are already crowded and overpriced. There has been a few home developments in last few years drawing young professionals into the area. In my neighborhood, there were many SAHM's with young or school aged children and those who sent their kids to the public schools were happy with their choices. There were also parents who happily sent their kids to nearby private schools. Parents of public school kids have only good things to say about the school. From all three sides of my house, there were children under age of 5. All the kids play together and especially in the summer, they were out and about in each others yards. The homes and large and lots are decent in comparison to what would get elsewhere.

Water and sewage is public and is excellent.

Air is great, wide open spaces so very fresh.

Crime rate - I'm not sure, but no issues for my neighborhood.

Values have dropped in current market, amazing prices, I can't imagine it not improve as houses are such great value.

In my neighborhood...houses start at 500K, and some costs 700K to 800K to build. So it really depends of the neighborhood.

I live in the town over from Bellingham and the crime rate is low. Just a lot of little hooligan kids, but nothing major. Blackstone and Woonsocket is different though. Sewage system is in Milford.
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Old 07-21-2009, 08:23 PM
 
Location: Central MA
65 posts, read 232,722 times
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Actually, average list price in Bellingham right now is $320,000. You could certainly pick up a starter home for even less.....and if you're a first time homebuyer, there's that $8000 tax credit. Taxes are only $10.00 per thousand which is on the low side for this area.

As far as re-sale in 5 years.....no one can really answer that. I believe prices are at the bottom right now as not much has declined in past 3 months.

But look at it this way, if you're renting you are giving your money away every month - even if you only got what you paid for it 5 years down the road, you are still ahead of the game.
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Old 11-13-2011, 07:43 PM
 
4 posts, read 10,764 times
Reputation: 11
Problem is with Bellingham that growth is so uncontrolled that you literally could wake up to a dirt pile facing your home (happened to someone up the street from me.) I lived on a street that turned out to be horrifically busy, although it was ostensibly residential. Turns out that trucks were allowed up and down it all day and night, as well as motorcycles, although the street was clearly marked "No trucks." Occasionally we'd have 100 motorcycles buzzing up the street. Noise was horrible.

Shopping there is also horrible, as the major shopping areas are all concentrated right around 495. It used to take me 20 minutes just to get out of the Market Basket parking lot during the holiday season. Town Council doesn't care at all about residents vs. growth, IMHO. I understand that a Motorcross and soccer field may be put up on one street, and yet ANOTHER mall is planned in the 495 area. Gads!

Meanwhile, there are no restaurants (other than Chiles and Outback and one or two mom and pop pizza joints.) Schools are not good. My neighbor shipped her son up to Hopkinton schools to keep him out of Bellingham schools. Should you ever want to sell your home, this could be a real issue. Downtown area (if you could call it that) is NOT walkable and poorly designed. Good luck trying to find the post office! This town has the potential to be so much but fails due to poor planning on the part of the Town.

On the plus side, people seem nice (our street was so busy that we couldn't even walk across it to meet most people) and the crime consisted of people opening unlocked cars and stealing change. Also, very close to 495. And houses are cheap (because of all of the above.) Taxes are cheap as well.

If you can, I'd recommend Franklin or Hopkinton or Medfield or even Medway. All are nice areas.

It got so bad in Bellingham that I moved after only two years, losing a substantial amount of money. I just couldn't take another day of the noise and lack of concern of the Town. And I had a really cute home with a nice sized lot. Could have done a lot with it. But, as they say, it's all about "location, location, location." And Bellingham just doesn't have it.
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