Moving to Boston area - advice on nearby towns (Framingham: middle-class, houses)

[Kiho]

My family (two children, ages 2 and 6 months) will be relocating from South Florida to the Boston area within the year. We are trying to determine where to move and have identified a few towns outside of Boston which seem very promising. Three towns that we are focusing on are Natick, Medfield, and Sherborn/Dover. My in-laws live in the Pittsfield and will be visiting Lincoln, Sudbury, and Lexington; depending on their feedback we may be adding them to the list as well. We’ll be up there in October to look at everything in person, and I hope to have our search narrowed down to a couple top choices.


I’d love to get your opinions on these towns and suggestions for others that might fit our criteria. Here’s a summary of our priorities, in order:

- excellent public schools (not just test scores, but general academics, extracurricular activities, etc)
- community feel – Activities for moms and young children. Eventually, I’d like for my children to be able to hop on their bikes (or snowshoes, if that’s how you northerners get around in winter) and have plenty of kids nearby to play with. I love the idea of small town New England with a town center and lots of activities.
- commute to Boston: My husband will be working in Boston – either in the city or somewhere along Rte 128. Ideally, the commute would be less than 45 min driving, or at least close to public transportation. It is likely we would be in the house for much longer that he will be at the initial job he takes when we move.
- Our budget will probably top out at about $550K. Ideally, I’d like a 4br with a decent size lot. From what I've seen online, I think that may be stretching it, but am hopeful there are deals to be had.

. Thanks so much in advance for your responses!

[holden125]

It seems you don't know where the job will be yet. Whether it's in downtown Boston, or the precise location in the suburbs, will make a huge difference in terms of commute time. It may make sense to reserve focusing on towns until that is settled. Unless you're willing to tolerate a longer commute on the theory that he'll change jobs before too long.

Others who live in the area may correct me, but my impression is that Medfield, Dover and Sherborn (which are separate towns that share a school district) are very nice but somewhat isolated. There's no train and it's a bit of a trek to major highways. For that reason, it would be hard to commute to Boston from any of those towns in 45 minutes. Even from the Natick station, it's almost 45 minutes to South Station in Boston, and that's just the time on the train. Door-to-door it's longer. As you may have seen, those towns are also expensive. There may be a deal, though. I really don't know enough about the prices there these days.

One other thing: Those three towns are rather woodsy outside of the immediate center (which, except perhaps for Medfield, is not itself large). As you may have seen in Western Mass., many Mass. towns have fairly narrow country roads radiating out from the center green. In many of the towns outside 128, development has been limited to small developments off these main roads. They're often just one or two streets. Essentially, the towns are not "filled in" as they are in South Florida, or even in towns closer to Boston. As a result, driving in these towns gives the impression of being in the woods, and it would be hard for young kids to bike around town too much.

Natick, on the south side, is similar to Sherborn, Dover, etc. But Natick has much more of a town center. It also has the train and better access to highways. The schools are, as I understand it, pretty good but not a super-duper top-rated district. Keep in mind that this is by the standards of the Boston suburbs, where the bar is set very high.

Lincoln and Sudbury are similar to Dover and Sherborn. Very pretty, quite expensive, mostly woodsy. They each have a miniscule center. Lexington also is expensive (you'd probably not find 4-BR with a relatively large lot for $550K), and has high property taxes but great schools with a ton of activities. The schools are also known for pressure, though. A lot of kids of academics, doctors, scientists, go to those schools. Lexington has a decent-sized downtown and is more filled in overall than Lincoln, Sudbury, Dover or Sherborn.

Other than Lexington I really can't speak to activities and community feel in any of the towns, but the people I've known who lived in them all seemed happy with their choice.

[CaseyB]

You catch the train from Medfield at either the Norfolk station or one of the Walpole stations depending on what side of town you live on. Based on the other criteria, it seems like it would fit your needs (good schools, community feel, safe, small town where kids can ride their bikes all over, etc.). You can probably find something in your price range there in this current market.

[Kiho]

Thanks for the responses. We definitely won't know where the job will be before we go up in October; what we hope to gain from that trip is to narrow down our choices to a couple of towns, and decide once we know where he'll be working.

[kmann-sherborn]

I live in Sherborn & have clients who live in Sudbury & Lincoln so can share feedback based on that.

Sherborn. I absolutely love it here. We lived in several Metrowest towns before and Sherborn was the best fit for us because there's such great preservation of open space, tons of trails, a great (non-motorized) pond for sailing & swimming. It's easy to get to the Mass Pike or pick up the train in nearby Natick, but it feels like you're in the middle of the forest in parts. I love the quiet. It's not for everyone though. The town center doesn't have much to offer, although there's tons of shopping at the upscale mall in Natick or in Wellesley. We don't have children in the schools but my friends in book club absolutely rave about the teachers at Pine Hills Elementary. We have a very active newcomers club & good activities for youngsters, plus the usual sports programs.

Sudbury. I have several clients who moved there from out of state & talk about how easy it was to get to know people and become part of the community. Most of my friends there have older children & the feedback I've heard is that the high school does quite a good job of preparing students for college and greater responsibilities, including civic responsibility. Our closest friends live in N. Sudbury (near Willis Dr) and it always seems like there's a neighborhood party or event going on. There's no real cohesive "center" in Sudbury, but are lots of cultural & recreational activities.

excellent public schools (not just test scores, but general academics, extracurricular activities, etc)
- community feel – Activities for moms and young children. Eventually, I’d like for my children to be able to hop on their bikes (or snowshoes, if that’s how you northerners get around in winter) and have plenty of kids nearby to play with. I love the idea of small town New England with a town center and lots of activities. The only complaint I hear about Sudbury is that there's no public transit to Boston and it's not near the pike so it's a bit of a drive.

Lincoln. It's a quiet town with large, beautiful home lots + train access. This is probably a generalization but I've heard people say that residents appreciate their privacy & tend to keep to themselves more than in general suburbia, but that's just heresay. It's a gorgeous, unspoiled town with lots of trails & outdoor activities.

Two other ideas I have for you:
-Concord is a gorgeous town with highly rated schools, great train access + the quintessential New England town center. The budget there is a little challenging, but then again it will be in Sherborn as well. Please feel free to pm me if you'd like more info. My husband's family lives there & we have friends who moved there specifically for the schools.
-Holliston is a lovely quiet town with award-winning schools, a sweet New England town center with a general store, cafe, children's park, tennis courts, ballfield, a few shops, plus tons of activities for the kids + reasonable home prices. However, no train access. You'd have to take back roads to the Mass Pike.

[kmann-sherborn]

You can also see photos of Holliston at Flickr: elizaj1's Photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/21590926@N07/ - broken link)

[ogre]

I think Holden makes a good point, that the commuting time from the towns being considered would vary a lot depending on the location of the job, so that either you need to know the job's location before settling for sure on the town, or you'll need to be flexible about commuting time.

Assuming that the location turns out to work for commuting, I'm thinking that Natick may be the best fit for combining all your criteria, out of any towns you have been considering.

While many of the towns you are considering are woodsy, with low population densities and a lot of the winding main roads Holden described, as long as you stay away from the south side, which has that woodsy character, Natick has real neighborhoods where kids can ride their bikes around and walk to their friends' houses during July, then can get around when they strap on snowshoes or hitch up the dog sled when winter sets in during early August (just kidding). All kidding aside, about snowshoes and such, there are real neighborhoods in much of Natick, where kids can get around by biking or walking.

Agreed with Holden that the schools in Natick may not be at the very top among schools in Boston's suburbs, but that Boston's suburbs generally have very high standards, so that Natick's schools are good by more general standards.

Natick's downtown is attractive, although it does have mainly the very basic kinds of small stores, nothing fancy, aside from a little community arts center.

Finally, Natick, though it's basically an upper-middle-class kind of town where housing costs aren't exactly cheap, does offer more house for the money on average than Sudbury, Dover, Sherborn, Medfield, Lexington, basically any of the other towns you've mentioned as possibilities.

With the qualification that the commute will be longer if the job turns out to be on 128 or in Boston, I second KMann-Sherborn's suggestion that you consider Holliston. When you said you loved the idea of small-town New England, Holliston was the first town I thought of in the vicinity of towns you are already considering. Keep in mind that these towns are suburbs, so they may lack something of the genuine small-town feel, though some of them retain the attractive appearance of New England towns, with a town green at the center of the downtown. Although it too is a suburb, Holliston somewhow still seems to retain some of the genuine small-town character. Keep in mind that this small-town character does mean that there is not a huge variety of local shopping, so you would need to decide whether a drive of twenty minutes or so to the malls in Framingham and Natick would be okay for most of your shopping beyond the very basics.

The other qualification with Holliston is that it has quite a few of those winding main roads. It does have neighborhoods where kids could walk or bike to friends' houses, but these are kind of isolated small pockets which are connected by main roads, so if you really want a neighborhood, you need to look closely at any location in Holliston where you might consider buying. Hopkinton is similar to Holliston, but it's one town farther out from Boston, so commuting could be even more of an issue from Hopkinton. Aside from the commuting issue, if you like Holliston, you'll most likely find Hopkinton appealing as well.