Are there any cities within a two hour drive of Boston that are nice?

[StageLeft]

Yep, that's a rather loaded question! Boston is a nice place, but from what I hear it costs about $15 mil just to buy a shed in the bad part of town. If a person was intent on living within two hour's drive of Boston, what are some alternatives? I see Connecticut and New Hampshire and all that good stuff. I seem to recall that IT jobs in Boston and surrounding areas are still pretty scarce. Ideally we'd want an area with a pretty good economy and houses that don't cost an arm and a leg. As comparison I like Birmingham's economy and housing prices here are pretty sweet, but it's not within two hour's drive of Boston.

Why Boston? It's in New England, and is a huge hub for flying. I suppose that New York would likely fit the bill, but I KNOW there is nowhere to live close to New York unless you're rich or don't mind living in a box.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

i like the coastal area of NH a lot. thats within 2 hrs

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
i like the coastal area of NH a lot. thats within 2 hrs

Are housing prices sickening? BTW, we definitely prefer anything close to the coast. It seems that coastal towns/cities are always nicer than those inland.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

West/Southwest side. I'm thinking of Worcester, Auburn areas.

Prices are relatively better; 1-hour drive to Boston.

 

[malbojah]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
i like the coastal area of NH a lot. thats within 2 hrs

Are housing prices sickening? BTW, we definitely prefer anything close to the coast. It seems that coastal towns/cities are always nicer than those inland.

Look south towards Cape Cod. About 2 hrs to Boston on a good day

 

[captains]

hartford,ct north end

 

[SpunkyJones]

Originally posted by: PhoenixOrion
West/Southwest side. I'm thinking of Worcester, Auburn areas.

Prices are relatively better; 1-hour drive to Boston.

I'd also look southwest, Auburn, Millbury, Oxford, etc. are cheaper and within 2 hours of Boston. It also depends how much you want to spend & how much house you want.

 

[Biggerhammer]

NH seacoast is expensive. I lived in Manchester NH for a while and commuted to Boston. It's at the edge of your two hours but fairly cheap, decent city to live in if you avoid the really low-rent zones.

 

[conjur]

My sister's about to sell her house in Providence, R.I. You could buy that. 🙂

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Yep, that's a rather loaded question! Boston is a nice place, but from what I hear it costs about $15 mil just to buy a shed in the bad part of town. If a person was intent on living within two hour's drive of Boston, what are some alternatives? I see Connecticut and New Hampshire and all that good stuff. I seem to recall that IT jobs in Boston and surrounding areas are still pretty scarce. Ideally we'd want an area with a pretty good economy and houses that don't cost an arm and a leg. As comparison I like Birmingham's economy and housing prices here are pretty sweet, but it's not within two hour's drive of Boston.

Why Boston? It's in New England, and is a huge hub for flying. I suppose that New York would likely fit the bill, but I KNOW there is nowhere to live close to New York unless you're rich or don't mind living in a box.

Mystic, CT
Old Saybrook, CT
Lym,Old Lyme, CT

Well, pretty much anywhere within distance on the RI or CT shore are nice. Just stay out of hte citieis like New london and Groton.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: malbojah

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
i like the coastal area of NH a lot. thats within 2 hrs

Are housing prices sickening? BTW, we definitely prefer anything close to the coast. It seems that coastal towns/cities are always nicer than those inland.

Look south towards Cape Cod. About 2 hrs to Boston on a good day

ie. non-rush hour

Best thing is to look at the Boston Globe Real Estate
It will give you a clue as to what is out there.

Rentals can run you close to $1K easily.

You can also dig out some of the papers for other cities in the area.
Use a map to determine locality.

Note that NH has no income tax. Conn has high taxes

Figure that it will take 1hr per 30-45miles of commuting during rush hour if heading into any city in the area.

 

[Ynog]

The nice thing about Boston is that most anything in New England is 2 hrs away.

I live on the RI cost which is like 1:15-1:30 non-rush hour drive to Boston.
Really nice area, really busy in the summer time.

In my opinion house prices throughout New England are sickening. Especially if your coming from the South.
But there isn't much you can do about it.

There are lots of nice areas in New England.

 

[richardycc]

springfield, MA, houses are still "cheap" there, about 90miles west of Boston.

 

[BHeemsoth]

Originally posted by: malbojah

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: HardcoreRobot
i like the coastal area of NH a lot. thats within 2 hrs

Are housing prices sickening? BTW, we definitely prefer anything close to the coast. It seems that coastal towns/cities are always nicer than those inland.

Look south towards Cape Cod. About 2 hrs to Boston on a good day

I live on the cape and can make it to Boston in about 1.5 hours.

Unfourtanetly the median house price is now over 380k on the cape, and 300k will get you a crappy cottage.

You may have better luck staying just off of the cape, perhaps in the plymouth/kingston area.

Those towns are about 30-40 minutes from Boston.

 

[teatheif]

I live in Nashua, NH right now. I commute to work (Harvard) everyday. With the rte 3 construction finished now, it takes me 50mins to get there. I find the housing prices in Nashua to be too much. My wife and I just bought a newly constructed house in Milford,NH. We payed a little over 300K for a 4 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, 2 car garage, and some upgrades. The builder says the house is 2080 sqft but the actually living space is smaller. Now the builder is charging 320K just for the base price on our house. It is a good thing we bought the house when we did or we would not have purchased a house in Milford because that is too much just to live in Milford which is a little further north than Nashua.

 

[snoturtle]

Could also look at Southern Maine

Alot of people are moving that way as the ride down 95 isn't bad


The general area around Springfield also isn't bad but stay out of springfield itself unless you find a good deal up in the 16 acres area

 

[HardcoreRobot]

riding down from NH maine towards boston is MUCH nicer than driving on 95 through CT and RI. that is the consistently worst stretch of highway i have ever had the pleasure of driving on

the cape is definitely nice, but expensive. i cant comment on NH coastal property costs...

 

[marleymarl]

Originally posted by: captains
hartford,ct north end

I'm moving there in a few months...beautiful there and about 2 hours or less from Boston

 

[StageLeft]

Any other ideas about prices, while I read the thread in more detail? $300k or $320k for a new four bedroom is not THAT bad...not great though 🙁

 

[RichieZ]

hartford, ct isn't bad. I visited when I interviewed at UBS. Close enough to NY or Boston.

 

[ElFenix]

moving skoorbie?

 

[StageLeft]

OK I've been looking now in Southern Maine, and it seems that $300k will get a very respectable house: new build, three bedroom, two car garage, etc. One I found was about 65 miles from Boston, which isn't bad. Really though I don't treasure the idea of commuting to boston, because one way or the other it will be either too expensive (for a house), or too long a drive. Are there any cities in southern maine or any areas like that that don't have a crappy economy? I suppose that finding a house is really just the matter of plugging a city into a real estate search, but getting an idea on local economy is more difficult...

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
OK I've been looking now in Southern Maine, and it seems that $300k will get a very respectable house: new build, three bedroom, two car garage, etc. One I found was about 65 miles from Boston, which isn't bad. Really though I don't treasure the idea of commuting to boston, because one way or the other it will be either too expensive (for a house), or too long a drive. Are there any cities in southern maine or any areas like that that don't have a crappy economy? I suppose that finding a house is really just the matter of plugging a city into a real estate search, but getting an idea on local economy is more difficult...

I can't really comment on the economy of cities in Maine, but basically you won't get anything closer to the city for that money. If you want to live nearish Boston you would have to raise your prices to closer to 500K or so 🙁. One thing to note that even though the cost of living is more expensive here, job salaries usually compensate for that. If you compare a typical salary here to the same job somewhere in the south or midwest you will notice that its significantly higher in Boston.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: DeviousTrap

Originally posted by: Skoorb
OK I've been looking now in Southern Maine, and it seems that $300k will get a very respectable house: new build, three bedroom, two car garage, etc. One I found was about 65 miles from Boston, which isn't bad. Really though I don't treasure the idea of commuting to boston, because one way or the other it will be either too expensive (for a house), or too long a drive. Are there any cities in southern maine or any areas like that that don't have a crappy economy? I suppose that finding a house is really just the matter of plugging a city into a real estate search, but getting an idea on local economy is more difficult...

I can't really comment on the economy of cities in Maine, but basically you won't get anything closer to the city for that money. If you want to live nearish Boston you would have to raise your prices to closer to 500K or so 🙁. One thing to note that even though the cost of living is more expensive here, job salaries usually compensate for that. If you compare a typical salary here to the same job somewhere in the south or midwest you will notice that its significantly higher in Boston.

Yeah, I had considered that salaries must be higer to cover the exhorbitant real estate and taxes and all that. The house prices don't scare me toooo much, but $300k would be an absolute ceiling on cost, and that's twice what our current house is worth (!). I picked Birmingham originally because I knew its economy was decent, and it is. I won't move to another city that has a crappy one (like Halifax, NS!).

 

[TitanDiddly]

OMG, do NOT come to MA. It's only a matter of time until this state's suckyness will cause it to rot and fall out like a bad tooth.