Posted on 07/30/2009 12:58:14 PM PDT by rom
Hi folks, I am thinking of taking a job in Massachusetts, and I was wondering if any FReepers had any recommendations on where to live. The company is located in Waltham, and I've always wanted to live on the East Coast.
I would be leaving sunny Southern California. I am shocked to see that the land of Kennedy and Kerry has much lower tax rates (income and sales) than the land of fruit and nuts.
We are a family of five (no pets) and it seems like the biggest hurdle I have is finding a nice enough place to live for three young active children.
I also want to find a good inexpensive Christian school (my son goes to a Baptist school right now -- great Academics and low tuition). While I'm not averse to a Catholic school, but we're not Catholics.
“..and I was wondering if any FReepers had any recommendations on where to live”
New Hampshire. :)
Sounds like a lateral move.
You are going to move to the East coast? They have slaves!
You could check Southern NH. Of course NH has no income tax or sales tax. The Real Estate taxes are going to kill you. Waltham might be a bit of a hike every day, but it might be worth looking at.
You are more likely to find Christian schools the further north or west you go from Boston.
While some of the liberals will drive you nuts, after a while you might be asking yourself just who votes for these people. Most of your new friends will be fiscally conservative and socially more liberal. However, the greater Boston area gives you some great sports, good schools, decent people.
Move to Kentucky and commute.
But if you must live in Mass...Swansea is pretty nice.
Yes. NOT Massachusetts.
Now THAT’S good advice!
ROFLOL! That didn’t even strike me til you mentioned it.
I live in Rehoboth, good conservative town. See Mansfield, Norton and Dighton, too.
Southern NH. You’ll still pay MA income taxes, but save sales taxes on everything else. Property taxes are higher in NH, but the differential with MA is less than it once was, especially if you choose your town carefully - and you’ll get more house for the money. Your commute would be 20-40 miles, pretty much all highway.
Try some towns west of Waltham on Route 20, like Marlborough or Northborough. Commuting on Route 95 is a real nightmare. Hudson is a small, rural community if that’s what you’re looking for.
I live in Mass. and I tend to agree with the poster stating New Hampshire, but alas I am not planning on moving since I grew up here. Politics are awful and hopefully I won’t be driven out someday by the corruption and taxes that keep being imposed.
So, now I’ll give some advice: If you are well off and like the country - Sudbury or Wayland are pretty fancy country towns although expensive homes and I’ve heard taxes are high. As I look at a map at what is around Waltham, they all look like pretty expensive towns to live in though. The further west you get, the cheaper the property would be in most cases. That does not mean there are not any wonderful places to live west of Waltham!
I guess not much help, but it’s a start!
I used to live in Boston some years back. If you just accept the fact that politics suck there, it’s really not a bad place to live. As you’ve pointed out, the taxes are actually quite reasonable; 5% sales tax and 5.3% flat income tax. While the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democrat, there’s a very large faction of conservative Democrats that help keep taxes in check. I don’t know the suburbs that well, but that whole area West of Boston always seemed nice to me; I like it better than the North or South shores.
Thanks for the heads up — coming from a West Coast perspective (where the closest state is usually hundreds of miles away) I forget how close the states are in the East Coast.
I wouldn’t be buying property anytime soon out there, as I have a feeling I may be bouncing around the country over the next 5 years due to the economy’s impact on my industry (software engineering) — so property tax isn’t as big of an issue for me.
Thanks!
I like Gloucester. It’s an older fishing town. Beautiful scenery, and it’s really different from Boston. (They don’t try to run you down in the crosswalks, stuff like that...) I was visiting some old friends in Boston when 9/11 happened. That really showed the differences. While in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville there were the constant “it’s our fault” rumblings - that Saturday night I wound up in a wonderful seaside restaurant with a piano bar upstairs. It was goose-bump city when everyone started singing “God Bless America.” Loudly, fervently - it’s a memory I still cherish.
I concur, New Hampshire. It’s one of the very lowest cost of living areas in out entire Country. It’s also very beautiful.
For example, I have a friend that lives in Roby park, NH, and commutes into Boston for work, about a 35 mile drive I think.
Do some googling, there are LOTS of websites that help you compare, not just costs, but overall quality of living, in each State.
Live north east of Boston near NH some semi-conservative towns like Groton, Dunstable, or Chelmsford, they are all good towns with good school systems. That area is 35 minutes from Boston, 45 minutes from the beaches and 1 hour from the NH mountains.
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