Relocating to the Manchester Area; Help please.

[jakiedoodle]

I am from Candia and I love it here. My son is 10, in 4th grade. The school has great teacher/student ratios (17 students in my son's room, 13-18 seems to be the average). Candia has a Youth Athletic Association with indoor sports all winter. I happen to rent myself....rentals are a little harder to find in Candia. I'm in a large duplex, huge yard on a dead end! I LOVE it!
A link to the YAA: Candia Youth Athletics Association, Main Web Page for you to look into. The girls soccer team has been GREAT for a few years now I guess!! My son takes guitar lessons down the street from the school. He is also taking snowboard lessons with his school. They offer after-school Art classes for a month with the Currier Art Museum (Manchester) right at the school. He did that also about 2 months ago. They have a great Academic "challenge" program called Minds in Motion. Here's the towns website link: Town of Candia, New Hampshire
As far as shopping etc. goes, South Willow Street in Manchester offers everything you could want - restaurants, the Mall of NH, grocery stores, Wal-Mart, pet stores, etc. It's an 8 minute ride for me. Hooksett is also very close and there is another Wal-Mart, K-Mart, more restaurants, etc.

I hope that helps! Whereever you decide to move, I think you will love NH! In general, NH residents are very helpful, friendly, outgoing and down to earth. : )

Best of Luck!

[jakiedoodle]

To add onto what you said about the median incomes....you will not find very many low-income families here in Candia. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that we don't have very many rental units. There are rentals down the street from me that seem to be decent and I know for a fact they run about $800-$900/month but that's for a 2-bedroom and there aren't a whole lot of them. A lot of families are on the higher end of the scale, with almost everyone owning their own homes...I'm on the medium side I guess. There is NO "slummy" section in Candia. Crime? You very RARELY hear of any - if at all. I really think it's a great place for kids / families!

[yinduffy]

One item not yet mentioned are the flight paths to and from Manchester airport ( recently renamed Boston-Manchester Regional Airport). The longest runway is North-South and planes fly low over Londonderry when coming in to land. Planes also fly over Manchester downtown but get really low about 1 mile from the runway. One time a small commuter plane clipped a light pole in a store parking lot!
Some homes got Federal money to sound-insulate their homes and some were purchased outright.

[jakiedoodle]

That's a great point about the airport! I never even thought of that one! I know I've been to Home Depot in Manchester a few times and the planes come over there flying very very low. It's almost kinda scary! LOL : )

[Prevarications]

Yinduffy, this sounds kind of like where we are now! Our house in under the flight path for most planes coming and going in Rochester. The military helicopters are the worst of it though! We had a scare last summer when we were in our back yard with our neighbors, and our kids, and theirs and a very low flying commuter plane looked like it was going to crash into our house! First it circled out street like 3 times, and we thought it must be someone taking pictures, and then it came into a position where it started coming right at us! All eight of the adults were running, to grab the kids, and we even had one woman who was pregnant, and she ran with her other two boys, and hid under our deck! We thought for sure it was going to take out our house. We have never been so scared!

Thank you both for the heads up about the airport. Noise, we can handle but I still get freaked out about the low flying planes!

[Valerie C]

The majority of Londonderry isn't affected by airplane noise or low-flying aircraft. The area that is most affected by airplane noise is along High Range Road, in particular from Shasta Drive and points north toward the airport. The North/South runway is almost perfectly lined up along that road.

The Stoney Field Yogurt Works is in the same area, and you can sit in the parking lot and watch the planes fly overhead. Until a couple of years ago, there was a great parking area to watch the runway and landings, that has since been closed off to parkers (that didn't sound right...)

[Kathleen DeMello]

Londonderry sounds like the town for you. The location is perfect, close to major highways and shopping, close to Manchester and Nashua. The school is system is very good and the athletic program is one of the best in the state - so the kids will do well there.