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My boyfriend and I are looking to relocate from SoCa. We'll be getting married soon, looking for a place to settle down, buy a home and raise a family. We have big dreams of raising our children in a place with four distinct seasons, affordable living, safe, clean, non congested, with a bit of that small town feel. Living in CA - we hate the traffic, homes piled on top of each other, summer heat all year long and of course extreme high cost of living. We both work - would need to be somewhere with a decent economy. A good place to raise a family, great schools and family festivities. We like outdoors activities, love the water - close to a lake would be nice. Would love to see the beauty of fall foilage and wake up to snow on the ground Christmas morning. We don't want to be too far from a major aiport as our family is all in CA and we'd want to be able to visit often. Entertainment wise -we dont need bars or anything like that - but restaraunts nearby (we love to eat!), close to a concert venue as we're music lovers and a movie theater. We want more for our buck. We'd like to buy a nice large comfortable home with some land to spend our life in- in the range of 150-200K. So we've been pondering WI and NH. Just not really sure where. S NH might be better as the snow isn't as heavy as the North. I did some research and stumbled upon Haverhill, NH. According to Sperling's report it has a lot of what we're lookiing for but just can't find much more information as to what the town really has to offer and some real life experience. Any help you can provide on our journey to finding a new home would be greatly appreciated.
Last edited by rocknrollgirl; 09-27-2009 at 05:15 PM..
Forget southern NH in that price range. A little north of Concord (the state catitol) might work fo you since the airport would be under one hour away, and even in that area you will be hard pressed to find anything in that price range but a small ranch.
Last edited by Brave Stranger; 09-27-2009 at 06:30 PM..
Haverhill is in that price range. Do you know much about that area?
Haverhill is not in southern NH.......it's way up past Concord and past central NH. It's nice up there, but does not seem to be in an area that you were looking for ? I don't live up there, but there are people ot here who do, and I'm sure you will get some feed-back soon. Good luck
As someone who lived in SoCal for 4 years, I can feel where you're coming from. I couldn't wait to get back to NH.
That said, Haverhill is definitely NOT what you're looking for. It's a very, very small town in the middle of nowhere in northern NH.
You will definitely want something farther south in the state, as southern NH is much more like what you've described, although Brave Stranger does bring up the issue of housing costs. There are a number of towns in southern NH with great school systems that are very close to all the amenities you'd want (Exeter, Durham, Londonderry, Amherst, Bedford, Hollis, Hopkinton, to name a few), but these areas are distinctly more expensive than other parts of the state and you probably wouldn't get what you're looking for in that price range.
I support Brave Stranger's recommendation for towns just north of Concord. Taking schools into consideration, I strongly suggest you look into Meredith, Belmont, and Ashland. These are all quintessential small New England towns with relatively low costs of living right in the Lakes Region -- there's water everywhere you look!
Meredith sits right on Lake Winnepesaukee (NH's largest lake) and is home to a movie theatre (also a community theatre) and a slew of restaurants, including some of the best in the state. The town can get busy in the summertime with all the vacationers, but overall it's a beautiful small town that happens to be really close to a lot of amenities. The Meadowbrook Pavilion concert venue is about 15 minutes to the south.
Another 15 minutes south of Meadowbrook is Belmont, which is tucked in a quiet, idyllic area between two major Lakes Region towns, Laconia and Tilton, and is only 25-30 minutes away from Concord. This is perhaps the most lucrative location in terms of finding employment nearby, and you'll also find movie theatres and restaurants in every direction.
Ashland is the most remote of the three towns (15 minutes north of Meredith and 30 minutes north of Belmont), but enjoys a convenient position right next to I-93 (Tilton is a straight shot in 20 minutes and Concord in 35 minutes). It's also a mere 5 minutes from the college town Plymouth, which has plenty of basic and cultural amenities. Ashland is a very peaceful town right at the gateway to the White Mountains.
All three towns should be within an hour's drive to the airport in Manchester -- add on another 45 minutes or so for the drive to Boston.
You might want to take a look at the southern seacoast. At the moment, you can buy a smallish house for around $200k, if you're willing to haggle. It's still a buyer's market, so you would do well to examine several homes here. In Seabrook, your money stretches further because we only pay $11.58 per thousand in property taxes, and don't have to pay for recycling, parking, garbage collection, the transfer station, library fines, beach parking (if you get there really early), or any of that other stuff. Because of the power plant, we have a great library, fire dept., police dept., REC center, and snowplows that keep the roads open year round. We're kind of spoiled, but too bad for the rest of the world. Even for New Hampshire, the crime rate is really low, though the test scores in the public schools (we take special ed kids from neighboring towns) are lower than average. Strange that the private schools aren't suffering, hmmmm....
You really get a lot of bang for the buck here, though the traffic is really noticeable on Route 1 in the summer. The winters here are relatively mild, with about half the snowfall and winter lows about 5-10 degrees warmer than Manchester. I've driven to Manchester in 35-50 minutes (depending on traffic and if you are willing to pay the 75 cent toll), and Boston is about 45-55 minutes away, unless you hit traffic on the way.
For better or worse, your money will go further in Wisconsin. You'd also be that much closer to your family in CA. One thing I learned when we lived in CA is that even an extra hour on the airplane counts when you're flying with kids .... a lot of Wisconsin is really beautiful, it's a friendly, down-to-earth culture, Madison is supposed to be a great city. Door County is lovely and surrounded by water, and it's an easy drive to Chicago & Milwaukee.
I think it will be tough to find a decent family home in that price range in the better school districts in NH, and because there's no income tax property taxes are quite high (especially in the better school districts since that's how they pay for everything - the teacher's aides, extracurriculars, art and music, etc.) If you decide to look here, think about the compromise between ease of travel and price - you'll pay more to live within an hour of Boston, but if you're flying out of Manchester you won't be flying direct to CA (again, no problem at all without kids, big pain with kids.)
None of this is to knock on NH, which I love and think is a wonderful place to raise a family. Just wanted to point out that if you're equally drawn here and to another place that has a lower cost of living and is closer to your family, that place is probably worth a closer look!
To preface my comments - went to UW-Madison almost 30 yrs ago (watching my beloved Badgers play football as I write) but now live in Portsmouth, NH area.
Madison is going to be a more dynamic, cultural college city (great farmer's market) than any you'll find in NH. Can't really speak for the rest of Wisconsin.
That said, I would chose select NH areas (especially the Portsmouth area) over Wisconsin for several reasons: Portsmouth-great small city with historic architectural character, Music Hall, restaurants, but still has your Barnes and Nobles, Best Buys on outskirts.
Portsmouth area is geographically more beautiful and interesting than the flat lands of Madison (although Madison does have nice lakes) or the Milwaukee area. Portsmouth is one hour either way to Boston or Portland, a beautiful seacoast, and also one hour away from beautiful lakes and mountains.
Summers/ Fall about the same - beautiful. Hotter in central NH than Portsmouth/Seacoast. Earlier Spring in NH.
Winters - it depends. Madison - snow and brutally cold. Central NH - snow, cold. Portsmouth/Seacoast - less snow than inland NH and slightly less cold.
Weather wise my pick again is NH especially the Seacoast area.
If it matters - friday fish frys in Wisconsin or fresh lobster, cod, clams and scallops in NH. NH! Say no more.
Finally, I think you're generally going to have lower crime and lower taxes in NH than Wisconsin.
My suggestion -visit Madison/ Wisconsin and Portsmouth/ Central NH for a week each in late January to sample these places in a winter context. Are you sure you want four seasons?
As for visiting both areas- that's what we've been thinking about doing. My boyfriend is really stuck on moving to the New England area over the midwest. But he has never been to either so there's really no better way of deciding than seeing it for ourselves. My main push for the midwest is the lower cost of homes but I'm being told that the property taxes are high. So we'll see. Still a lot of research to do and the final deciding factor of course is visiting and seeing which place we fall in love with. I appreciate all your feedback so much. It's great to have a site like this where you can get feedback from actual people who live in these areas.
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