[KFonseca]

Hello all,

My sister and I are researching moving to Vermont for retirement. Sis is 63. I am 58. We are very liberal in our mindset, and love the northern climate. We grew up in Brooklyn NY.

We have a number of dogs and plan to look for a home (2000sqft+) on a minimum of 5, preferably 10 acres+. We are not rich and hope we can find what we want for $300k-400k as this is our limit/budget.

My sis is very much into opera, cooking, culture...I am more into my dogs and gardening. I would love mature fruit trees on our property.

Having a good transportation system is important to us for getting around town (taxi, bus, etc.), and also trains or whatever are available to travel to Boston & NYC. Neither of us has any desire to drive unless absolutely necessary.

My sis will be in NYC the end of this year visiting our brother and plans to go to VT for a look see and *hopefully* finding a property for us.

Any info or direction would be much appreciated.

Karen F.

[joe moving]

i think you will want a car unless you live in town, then you won't have 5 acres probably.

you might want to check our the amtrak train schedule to get to NYC. i know that the ones that go through are touristy trains that take a long time and have a lot of stops, but you can do it. it would not be a day trip.

[68vette]

Originally Posted by KFonseca

Hello all,

My sister and I are researching moving to Vermont for retirement. Sis is 63. I am 58. We are very liberal in our mindset, and love the northern climate. We grew up in Brooklyn NY.

We have a number of dogs and plan to look for a home (2000sqft+) on a minimum of 5, preferably 10 acres+. We are not rich and hope we can find what we want for $300k-400k as this is our limit/budget.

My sis is very much into opera, cooking, culture...I am more into my dogs and gardening. I would love mature fruit trees on our property.

Having a good transportation system is important to us for getting around town (taxi, bus, etc.), and also trains or whatever are available to travel to Boston & NYC. Neither of us has any desire to drive unless absolutely necessary.

My sis will be in NYC the end of this year visiting our brother and plans to go to VT for a look see and *hopefully* finding a property for us.

Any info or direction would be much appreciated.

Karen F.

It sounds like the area would be a good fit for you. You will not find property in Montpelier with that much land. You will need to be outside of town. East Montpelier, Plainfield, Marshfield, Middlesex, etc. The problem with living outside of Montpelier is that there is no bus service (Plainfield has a route for the Health Center, but it is for medical needs only). A taxi service is the only service I am aware of in Montpelier. There are several in Barre. The only issue I can see with cabs is the wait for service and possibly the cost. The train is a great way to travel, but there is no direct route from Montpelier to Boston. The cost is high as well. The trip from Montpelier to Boston is about twelve hours and the price range depends on the route, $85-140 coach one way. NYC is a little better. The trip is 9 hours and a ticket runs about $70. These are prices for Friday departures and are one way. If you travel in the middle of the week the price is a little less. Depending on how important public transportation is for, that may be the only hang up for you.

[jackmccullough]

Montpelier has a lot of what you're looking for. There is culture, including theater, live music every night of the week, occasional opera performances at the Barre Opera House, and a liberal, congenial population.

You'll have no problem finding a nice house in your price range, although, as other commenters have pointed out, there are few, if any, five acre lots in the city (I can't think of one off the top of my head).

Public transport will be a bit of an issue. There is some local bus service but it's limited. You can take the Amtrak from Montpelier to New York; it is pretty much all day, like 9:00 to 6:40 or something like that. There's pretty easy bus service to Boston at a reasonable price and with a reasonable schedule; I've taken it and been pretty satisfied.

If you're thinking of moving here and you really won't even be looking to buy until the end of 2011 you might want to come for a week sometime and get a sense of the place. Maybe spend some of your time with a real estate agent to see what the properties are like.

There is a good web page for New England real estate sales called nneren.com, and there are generally a lot of listings there. You can also try picketfencepreview.com.

Also, check the City-Data archives. I'm a big Montpelier cheerleader and I know I've posted comments with lots of other sources for information about living in Montpelier. I don't really have time to replicate them right now, but there's a lot of information available.

[arctichomesteader]

You're going to need to do a lot more driving than you'd like in VT to get to where you want to go. Public transportation is rather lacking in most of this state.

You'll need to look outside of Montpelier for that kind of property. The surrounding areas aren't all quite so liberal as Montpelier either, FWIW.

BTW: Montpelier itself is vulnerable to flooding. Watch out for flood zones when buying any property in this state actually.

[KFonseca]

I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to respond to me so far. I realize public transportation may be an issue since we want to live on acreage out of town, but we will deal with that.

My sis thinks she will go out for a look see this fall. We are really leaning toward Montpelier.

I will keep reading responses and thank everyone again for your help and time.

Karen F

[joe moving]

if you can give on that 1 issue i think you will be happy otherwise. you could live in town and probably not have a car, but not nearly the land I think. i have only been a few times but i see some condos and lots of houses on small lots and multi-family homes.

i would be curious to know how many people who live in town do not have cars.

we love the co-op and farmers market. i also buy a lot of stuff from onion river sports (xc ski gear, snowshoes, bike stuff).

you might like this as a dog person . in montpelier i noticed a lot of businesses have signs that say NO DOGS ALLOWED because it almost seems if it is not stated, you MAY bring your dog in. a lot will also say we welcome dogs with clean paws or well behaved dogs, etc.

[KFonseca]

Hi Joe,

We can give on that issue. Frankly, we only need the acreage for maybe 5+/- years. We have 10 dogs, all rescues, and all but 3 are senior, some very senior now (15 and up). We will stay living out of town as long as those of our family are still with us. When they have passed on, we will take our smaller number of dogs and move into town. Our dream is a renovated Victorian in town, in walking distance to shopping, etc., but with the dogs, we know living out of town at first is the best path.

Thanks for your email. I do appreciate it.

Karen F

[wmass]

I like Brattleboro also, though not much for a transportation system.

Have you looked at other areas? I'd check out Northampton, MA on your way to VT - decent public transportation system, walkable/bikeable, easy bus access to nyc/boston, lots of culture, warmer (longer gardening season), Montpelier-like in many ways. Plus VT property taxes are pretty high: http://money.msn.com/retirement-plan...er.aspx?page=2

"Northampton combines the cultural breadth of a major metropolis ... with the low-key sensibility of a small borough." -National Geographic Adventure

"liberal enclave with rural roots"
Top Retirement Hot Spot
--AARP Magazine and CNBC (2010)

[joe moving]

we looked at northampton, hadley,amherst, granby etc. pretty seriously for a while.
we just did not seem to see that down to earth local food movement kind of vibe.

this is a place where walmart is in the same parking lot as whole foods if i remember correctly. in montpelier you go to the farmers market or the coop, not whole foods and feel like you are supporting something.

some parts were neat, but i just didn't get a good feeling. my 2 cents.

lots of college kids which are OK to an extent, bums on the street (not sure about montpelier on that aspet) ,etc.