It is expensive here and most people will tell you to move to Central MA. I personally don’t like any area of this state that’s north of Boston or out west/central. Probably just a bias because I grew up in the area where I live now and I hate places with too many trees. Boston itself is great but absolutely impossible for regular people with regular incomes to move to and this goes for the towns around it. I live in southeastern MA and I’m like 40 minutes away from Boston/Cambridge which is where I work every day. It’s not bad. There are towns in my neck of the woods that are more affordable as well. Housing everywhere has gone through the roof but if you look in the right town in southeastern MA (Middleboro, Carver, Lakeville, Kingston) you could find something that may be closer to your range.

Stay away from cities like Brockton, Taunton, Fall River and Springfield. I might get some hate for saying that but those towns need help.

Overall it comes down to what you’re looking for. If you like a little bit of seclusion and don’t mind wooded areas then western and central MA could be for you. They are more inexpensive to live in.

Pretty sure this is as NIMBY of a statement as you can get.

It's not Florida!

Western MA is the answer. We benefit from the great wealth of the Boston area but are less crowded and somewhat more affordable. Start with Springfield then go north to Greenfield. It is called the Pioneer Valley and is packed with colleges and Ph.D's. People will say bad things about Springfield because it is not as affluent as the rest of the state, but it is affordable and worth it for a few years until you get your finances stabilized. The surrounding towns are great with good schools and houses around $300K are still available. School salaries start around $46K and go to about 95K.

We do have higher taxes, but overall it is a good deal. My water meter inside the house (property of the city) broke 2 days ago and we had no water. I called the town water department in the evening after it was closed and they had a 2 plumbers there within the hour and had the meter replaced and tested working at no cost to me. The entire process took 1.5 hours. I emailed the mayor last year about an issue and he called me the next day.

We do have all the bad things other states have, just less of it.

Good suggestions so far. If I were able to pull it off, I'd most definitely live in the Northampton/Amherst area. However, jobs are something important to consider here.

What are your interests and activities? Do you see yourself spending many days at the beach during the summer? That might be something to consider. Massachusetts is small, but traveling to the beach from western MA is still a drive. I live north of Boston, where the ocean is close. It's also a shorter drive to coastal areas of NH and ME if that is important.

If you provide more info on your interests, we might be able to finely tune our answers.

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15 units per acre may not sound like much to you but most of these communities have current 1-2 acre requirements per household to maintain your required green space. When a farm that is 100+ acres sells, that will literally drown an entire towns municpal structure according to your non impact full 15 units per acre thoughts.

Clearly a statement of someone that doesn't have a clue how the real world works. Developers will and do build in communities where water and sewer isn't available. The state forces the towns to allow them in. Then the town is forced to come up with money and resources to support this new building. Sewage and water are least of the concerns. It's the schooling and added municipal employees aka fire, police dpw that are the hardest and most expensive added costs that all of the city dwellers don't understand and could care less about.

Found it. Yikes.

Ky1e a real one

Thank you for this summary!

Southampton

More liberal towns tend to be near larger cities. Someone else pointed this out as well, places near Springfield, Worcester, Boston etc.

As some others pointed out as well, housing is extremely expensive here. Especially as you get closer and closer to Boston.

My recommendation is someone in central MA. Towns like Upton, Mendon, and neighboring towns could have availability that might be cheaper than being closer to a large city.

I love living in central MA because I’m about an hour away from everything I could ever want to do. 1 hour from Boston, 1 hour from Springfield, less than an hour from Providence. Its sort of my sweet spot.

Orange you glad the stabbing wasn't another in Springfield 😆 lol

Which big Y?

I have some friends from here that moved to SC, who share my political beliefs (and yours) and we discuss the differences a lot. You’d be surprised the amount of weirdo trumpers here - there is a very vocal minority. But the stats don’t lie when it comes to voting, and the social policies usually follow.

My friends that moved there bought an absolutely beautiful 4 or 5 bedroom, 2.5 bath new house for the price of what you could get a 1 br condo in eastern Massachusetts (what I consider east of worcestor, around the rte 495 belt). The further west you go, typically the more house you can afford, the further East and closer to Boston, less. Southern NH, particularly southeast can be affordable cause it’s kindof rural and no major highways. But NH has high property tax.

All in all if you’re willing to be ~1.5 hr drive from Boston, you can find affordable homes with land, in my unprofessional opinion. Personally I’d just get a realtor to send you listings.

MA is liberal nirvana, but it's also expensive. Strange riff on people being "nice not friendly" but most are fairly well educated (public schools are generally good) and progressive.

Still problems with racism, discrimination, and crime but trying to get better.

New progressive gov and Boston mayor are shaking things up (for the good).

Will this bracket include the Seltzer Jr. and the SeltzerAde lines? really tough competition if so

This is noise. The condescending language clearly demonstrates your need to feel right.

I don’t see anything here that is a reasonable answer to OP’s question: when can OP claim the credit (2022 or 2023).

• Nothing on how the project drug to this month.
• Nothing on when a credit should be claimed for OP.
• Nothing on how OP can decide “this point” is when it is appropriate to claim credit

How could any this be right?

This is just noise.

Small towns got a huge break in a re-do of these rules last year. Carlisle for instance, only need to zone for 95 total units (was originally 750!). And again, thats just zoning, nothing needs to be done. If the builders cant deal with water and sewage they wont build. I'm not seeing anything in the rules that says the towns need to provide those services. My guess is a town like carisle will end up building a single apartment building sometime in the next 20 years, but no sooner than 10.

When I was looking in Braintree the only "affordable" sub-$500K homes I found have Red Line tracks and Route 3 as their backyard.

MA already requires a percentage of affordable housing. Most of the "NIMBY" towns have hit that goal one way or another. A lot of these same towns also have minimal land available to allow this new mandate to happen. My question to everyone is, how are the schools going to handle the added population, who is going to pay for additional schools to be built, renovated and staffed? Everyone here is calling these town as NIMBYS, do any of you live in the towns currently? I'm willing to bet if you did you would be another "NIMBY". People that decide to move out of the city to a more rural town are doing it for the way the town is, not for it to be a part of the city.

Knock knock

Who's there?

Orange.

Orange who?

...

I would consider Sturbridge. It's a cool, busy town with hip restaurants. An hour on the nearby "mass pike" highway gets you to Boston or 30 minutes to Springfield. One of the biggest antique shows in the country happens a few times a year just down the street in Brimfield. Hikes in nature just a skip away in the Brimfield State Forest. Centrally located to many other towns for some job opportunities with again, easy highway access.

The ugly part of MA is imo entirely focused on cost of living. You will have stuff like excise tax on your car(s), and housing costs are outrageous unless you go WAY off the path.

I have inlaws in Western NC and going to see them is like driving into Trumptown. I figured the coast would be more progressive but I guess not! One thing I immediately notice is that in western NC everything is spread way out. Driving anywhere feels like it takes forever. If the coast is like that, you may enjoy that it takes far less time to get around Massachusetts. If you hit slow downs it's more likely from traffic around the higher pop areas than just long distances of road.

Good luck with your move!

I asked the same thing.

This was the rundown.