Need Help: Moving Family from Midwest to Westchester this summer (New York: best towns, rentals)

[lamnny]

Moving wife and 3 kids (<8 of age) to Westerchester county this summer. Will be working in Midtown (5 mn walk from GC).

Would love feedback on best towns for my family. Outlined below our desires and concerns. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Desires:
- Town that offers that best opportunity for a successful transition from midwest to westchester
- Looking to rent between 6-10k/month for a couple years until we can sell existing home
- schools and social/sports activities important
- proximity to train into GC important (30-50 minute commute on train)
- like idea of living in waterfront town (e.g., Rye, Harrison, Larchmont, Mamaroneck) and possibly landlocked eastchester (think bronxville, chappaqua and scarsdale will be too difficult for wife/kids to transition)

Concerns:
- Competitiveness of schools and mean mommies (reference to prior post and article). We are coming from good schools, but feel transition to gold school vs. platinum in westchester might be right - not avoiding best schools but trying to avoid ultra-competitive dynamic that might undermine transition (if this is a valid concern)
- It appears there are a couple nice rental opportunities in harrison and eastchester but not in Rye. Is it better to have less house and more access to activities/town resources?

[kletter1mann]

Several points:

1. Where did you live in the midwest and what's you lifestyle about? Somebody from Wilmette IL, for example, isn't going to miss a beat going to Rye, Bronxville, etc. If your social circle goes for scrapbooking and tractor pulls, however, anyplace in Westchester will likely be a shock. Details on your culture shock concerns would be helpful.

2. Harrison and Eastchester, while nice by most standards, just aren't in the same category as Bronxville, Larchmont or the others.

3. It's not clear to me that B'ville, Chappaqua or Scarsdale would be any harder than larchmont or Rye. These are all affluent, well educated, sophisticated communities.

4. ALL these communities have competitive schools (relatively speaking) and mean mommies. But they also have great poeple and nice moms. If your wife isn't working she'll have ample opportunity to meet other SAHM's and will inevitably find some that she clicks with.

Hope this helps and gets the ball rolling.

[havoc315]

Originally Posted by lamnny

- It appears there are a couple nice rental opportunities in harrison and eastchester but not in Rye. Is it better to have less house and more access to activities/town resources?

Your budget and requirements really open up many options in Westchester. While there may be a few towns you rule in or rule out, I wouldn't just pick a single town to focus on.

Because, except for schooling, it is pretty routine to cross borders for many activities/resources. You will rely on your immediate town for schools, youth soccer league, etc... But you will also cross borders to use the parks of other towns, go to fairs, use their downtowns for shopping, etc.

So yes, look for schools and towns where you think you will have a basic comfort level, with an acceptable commute... But I wouldn't worry whether 1 town has nicer parks than the other town 5 minutes away.

To address 1 point though --- Since you have school-age children, and since you plan on renting for a couple of years, try to focus on renting in a school district, where you will ultimately want to buy. Just to avoid having to uproot the kids again out of their schools after a year or 2.

[kletter1mann]

Originally Posted by havoc315

So yes, look for schools and towns where you think you will have a basic comfort level, with an acceptable commute... But I wouldn't worry whether 1 town has nicer parks than the other town 5 minutes away.

Just make sure that the town 5 minutes away has some reasonable provision for nonresidents. If the neighboring town park had residents-only parking, for example, it may be troublesome. Offhand I'm not sure where this would an issue, just something to check. But it most definitely IS an issue in the CT towns on LI Sound.

[LightningMcQueen]

With your rent budget, you'll do fine in any school districts below I-287. Despite whatever you may have read, you'll find people you can say hi to and who will say hi back to you in Scarsdale and Bronxville. Heck, they might even invite you to their BBQ. Seriously, don't sweat it. Schools are good, and life is convenient if you can afford that kind of a rental within 30 minutes of Grand Central.

[lamnny]

Thanks for everyone's feedback (public and private). After doing more research, I've found a couple nice rentals in Purchase.

+ good value rental, nice bedroom community, purchase elementary seems to be very strong, still <50mn train to GC (though I have to drive 4/5 miles to get to station)
- harrison high school?, no town to walk through/socialize, surrounded by uber wealthy

Any thoughts would be great! thx

[bmwguydc]

Purchase is good, and the schools are respectable. If you want a more comprehensive town setting, it's not the right town, since Harrison has everything from tract houses to some of the larger homes in the county. If you want a nice town/village center, Larchmont is hard to beat, and the schools, while good, are not as competitive as Scarsdale or Bronxville, which is a notch below Scarsdale.

The downtown area of Harrison, by contrast, is not as comprehensive, or as nice, so that can be a drawback, especially when you have to drive from Purchase. However, Purchase is a great area, and you are close enough to White Plains and other areas where you could get your fill of a town environment.

[streetsmart]

With your budget you really won't have too many limitations. My recommendation would be to come for a visit and don't limit yourself by town. Look at houses all over the place that could possibly work for you, and then get a feel for that particular area by driving around.

That was the "mistake" we made when moving here. We were focused solely on 2 towns and didn't look elsewhere, and now that we've been here almost a year I've realized that many of those other towns that we excluded would have been just as nice. And really, the schools are great everywhere, not just in Scarsdale or Bronxville, and we shouldn't have worried so much. (I put mistake in quotations because we love where we've ended up so it all worked out.)

[lamnny]

I agree. I need to stop surfing the web and start visiting. We are going to come out in 2-3 weeks and I'll make sure to withhold judgement and visit as many towns as possible. thx!

[Walter Greenspan]

lamnny, in case you are unfamiliar with the local geography:

What people refer to colloquially as "towns" are actually villages and hamlets, which are within actual towns; and, because villages and hamlets are referred to as "towns", then, many times, the error is compounded when actual towns are referred to as "townships".

Also, many colloquially refer to a "downtown business district" in a hamlet as a "village".

NYS Geographic Glossary may be of some help to you in understanding the geography of "Noo Yawk".


You can get a fact sheet for any city, village or hamlet in New York by going here American FactFinder and input the name of the city, village or hamlet for "city/town" (leave out the ZIP Code) and New York for "State", and then click "GO".

You'll get a lot of demographic, and some economic, statistics for the city, village or hamlet you selected, and if you click on "Reference map" (it's on the right hand side), you'll get a map.


When you do find a house that you like, you can find out in which community (city, village or CDP) that house is actually located, which is oftentimes different from the community named in that house's mailing address, by using the Census Bureau's online address search function. (CDP, or Census Designated Place, is the Census Bureau equivalent for a hamlet in New York.)

And, very importantly, among other things, the Census Bureau's online address search function also indicates in which school district an address is located.