Wellesley or Needham for family with 500k income (Boston, Newton: middle-class, lawyers)

[curiouskitten]

Originally Posted by masshomebuyer

I would base your decision on your budget and how much time your husband wants to spend commuting to work. Maybe if you name a Connecticut town, I can make some sort of comparison? I might not know anything, but maybe somebody on this board knows more about CT than I do?

I’m from Fairfield, CT.

[curiouskitten]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

She gave a reason, albeit a weird one IMO.

If you’re not Asian, I can understand why you would think it’s weird but I don’t appreciate the opinion given the lack of experience being an Asian American. My reasonings are not weird to me because I’ve lived in all sorts of places as an Asian American and I know the nuances of how various types of Asians interact with one another. This isn’t something a non-Asian would know about. If you think people of the same race are always welcoming to each other, think again. White people are not the only ones who judge based on appearances. Asians bow down to the white man but they do a lot of judging of one another.

[curiouskitten]

Originally Posted by MikePRU

I spend a lot of time in both towns. Schools do tend to rank higher in Wellesley but this is MA and the schools here on the whole are quite good. So a Needham education while not ranked as high as a Wellesley one is still going to be far better than your kids would get almost anywhere in the country.

Wellesley, as a whole is a more aesthetically pleasing town and has more large/affluent homes in part because it's been an affluent suburb for a long time. Needham has really "come up in the world" over the last 30 years.

Wellesley has a larger selection of shops/restaurants in town, but Needham has more commuter rail stops which makes it a great choice for those wanting to commute into Boston. Geographically they're in somewhat similar locations and they both have pretty decent highway access.

Needham does tend to have a more "small town feel" and Wellesley does have a long standing reputation as a place where people strive to "keep up with the Joneses."

They're both quite similar places but with the exception of commuter rail stops Wellesley tends to have everything that Needham has but more of it.

At the end of the day, I think this really should come down to:

A) what home buying opportunities the world presents to you (look in both)

B) what your expectations are for your next home (your money goes a bit further in Needham)




Good advice. On MLS there's currently 9 homes available in Wellesley and 3 in Needham so that's not a lot to choose from. As I've mentioned before, there are a lot of homes trading off market right now in these towns (I'm not talking about FSBO's. I'm talking about pocket listings. ). So, best to work with an agent who specializes in this area.



As always, the more detail a poster can offer about their situation the better the advice received back is. What do you want to spend on a house? What are you looking for in your new house? (i.e. does it need to be new or newer or do you like antiques? How big should the house be? How big of a lot are you looking for?) Also, telling us about your lifestyle is super helpful. Do you need to be near a gym? Do you want to be near trails? Do you need to be near restaurants? The more information you can offer about your situation, the more helpful you'll find the responses. Otherwise, people are just taking stabs in the dark.



What???? I've lived in Needham for 14 years and eat out in Needham regularly. I have NEVER EVER sat down next to a table of people talking about strip clubs and drugs. What restaurant were you eating in? It sounds like you just had a stroke of bad luck and definitely it seems silly to judge the town based on a single experience. You don't even know if these people lived in town.



Where in CT did you grow up? The only affluent suburb in CT that I'm really familiar with is Old Greenwich and the atmosphere there seems to mirror the attitudes you see toward wealth in Weston.

Anecdotally, my family lives near the Wellesley/Needham line and we used to be members at the Boston Sports Club (a local gym chain that went bankrupt during the pandemic) in Wellesley. We gave up our membership because it made us uncomfortable to work out next to the Wellesley folks who showed up to the gym in full hair and makeup and Prada work out clothes.



I think saying "not in the same league" is a bit misleading. It's a step down in terms of school rankings and of course average income but it's not exactly Orange, MA either.

Originally Posted by MikePRU

Clearly none of you responding are familiar enough with Wellesley and the atmosphere in town to understand what I'm talking about.



The OP said something about being Asian but not being comfortable around other Asians because they only speak English or something along those lines. They felt Newton has a higher Asian population than the other towns they're considering. If you look back it's in the original post.



The Needham Facebook page is RIDICULOUS and it's not a good representation of the town. The posters are mostly a small very vocal minority combined with a group of people who haven't lived in the town for decades and opine about "the way things used to be" constantly.

I'd list the three main topics of conversation on the page as:

1. People not cleaning up after their dogs or bagging poop and then not properly disposing of the bags
2. Bad drivers driving through town
3. Old homes being torn down and replaced with new ones

Occasionally, there will be a hot local issue like recently there was a lot of talk about the rezoning of the Muzi car dealership. Unfortunately, it looks like that's going to be redeveloped into lab/office space. I think the town really bungled that one IMO.

Anyway, I really don't agree with the way the group is moderated and I've butted heads with the group owner a few times. Her group rules are quite vague and open to interpretation and she picks and chooses how she wants to apply them.

The bottom line is . . . the Facebook group is not really representative of the atmosphere in town.

Originally Posted by charolastra00

Amen to all of this, with the exception of the Wellesley Weekend - town festivals are a gem and a great way to build a sense of place in a time where so few of us live, work, go to school, and socialize in the same town.


I've never heard *anyone* having those types of conversations in public anywhere. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but you really can't take that as indicative of anything other than the person who is speaking loud enough for you to eavesdrop on.


Honestly, Wellesley feels more of place that someone would feel at home saying their (or their partner's) income is 500K, where Needham, Newton, or Brookline would say their housing budget is 1.5 million. Two very different ways of saying basically the same thing.

Love your username.

Which town would have more people who are likely to know what it refers to?

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by curiouskitten

Love your username.

Which town would have more people who are likely to know what it refers to?

Somerville. :P

[simplexsimon]

Originally Posted by curiouskitten

If you’re not Asian, I can understand why you would think it’s weird but I don’t appreciate the opinion given the lack of experience being an Asian American. My reasonings are not weird to me because I’ve lived in all sorts of places as an Asian American and I know the nuances of how various types of Asians interact with one another. This isn’t something a non-Asian would know about. If you think people of the same race are always welcoming to each other, think again. White people are not the only ones who judge based on appearances. Asians bow down to the white man but they do a lot of judging of one another.

I am an Asian American with a white spouse. I'm sorry you feel this way. I would not reject Newton based on this reasoning.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

I don't think it bears repeating but if you do a Ctrl+F for "Newton" in this thread you'll find it.

Originally Posted by MikePRU

The OP said something about being Asian but not being comfortable around other Asians because they only speak English or something along those lines. They felt Newton has a higher Asian population than the other towns they're considering. If you look back it's in the original post.



The Needham Facebook page is RIDICULOUS and it's not a good representation of the town. The posters are mostly a small very vocal minority combined with a group of people who haven't lived in the town for decades and opine about "the way things used to be" constantly.

I'd list the three main topics of conversation on the page as:

1. People not cleaning up after their dogs or bagging poop and then not properly disposing of the bags
2. Bad drivers driving through town
3. Old homes being torn down and replaced with new ones

Occasionally, there will be a hot local issue like recently there was a lot of talk about the rezoning of the Muzi car dealership. Unfortunately, it looks like that's going to be redeveloped into lab/office space. I think the town really bungled that one IMO.

Anyway, I really don't agree with the way the group is moderated and I've butted heads with the group owner a few times. Her group rules are quite vague and open to interpretation and she picks and chooses how she wants to apply them.

The bottom line is . . . the Facebook group is not really representative of the atmosphere in town.

Ah, thanks. I found it now. I'm not sure what to make of that. There are a fair number of Chinese people in Newton who do speak Chinese. There aren't as many people who are Korean, Japanese, or Vietnamese and speak Korean, Japanese, or Vietnamese, but they are also present. Anecdotally, I know lots of Asian people who only speak English, although when I think specifically of Asian people I know who also live in Newton, many of them (although not all) do speak another language, in addition to English, so I really have no idea whether an Asian person living in Newton would have more encounters with people who speak other languages than an Asian person living in Needham or Wellesley.


Re: the Facebook page -- yes, those definitely are the big 3 topics on that page. They do come up on the Newton pages, too, although with less frequency.

[masshomebuyer]

Originally Posted by curiouskitten

I’m from Fairfield, CT.

I want to say that Wellesley is the closest to Darien (minus the waterfront properties).

Fairfield (Westport/Weston side) is similar to many Greater Boston towns.

I'm not 100% sure! This is just my hunch.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by chicagoliz

Ah, thanks. I found it now. I'm not sure what to make of that. There are a fair number of Chinese people in Newton who do speak Chinese. There aren't as many people who are Korean, Japanese, or Vietnamese and speak Korean, Japanese, or Vietnamese, but they are also present. Anecdotally, I know lots of Asian people who only speak English, although when I think specifically of Asian people I know who also live in Newton, many of them (although not all) do speak another language, in addition to English, so I really have no idea whether an Asian person living in Newton would have more encounters with people who speak other languages than an Asian person living in Needham or Wellesley.

I'm not Asian myself and I'm not going to say that I can understand what the OP is concerned about because I've never walked in those shoes. Within every community no what it is that you use to define those communities, there are always politics.

Originally Posted by chicagoliz

Re: the Facebook page -- yes, those definitely are the big 3 topics on that page. They do come up on the Newton pages, too, although with less frequency.

I'm sure those are issues in many of the area suburbs. It's absolutely ridiculous how often people complain about these things on the Needham page.

[msRB311]

So Asian speaking Asians act racist to non Asian speaking Asians ?

[claiz]

To OP: I am Asian and I have lived in Newton and now Lexington. Both towns have good diversity and I have not encountered the type of experience you mentioned. I agree with others given the housing stock and competition it maybe helpful to expand the search. In fact, I will recommend expanding to include towns like Needham, Newton, Brookline, Arlington, Lexington etc. for a start.