Hi Bees! We are so excited that we are going to be moving to the Boston area in a couple of months! My husband has a new job located in Woburn. I'm not from the area so I thought I would see if anyone had advice on nice towns to live in nearby. We are looking to rent for a year or less and then buy a house. Thanks!!
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@GreenThumb: Yay, congrats and very soon welcome to the Boston area!! I grew up directly north of the city and while I don't know too much about northwest (and not sure exactly how far out from Boston you are looking to live) I do know that Acton has one of the best public school systems in the state!
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@mrs. wagon: Thanks!! We are so excited! We have been looking to move back to the east coast since we moved to WI three years ago. It will be so nice to be closer to family now that we have our little girl. He will be working in Woburn. I've definitely come across Acton when thinking about buying! I'll keep it on the list!
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@GreenThumb: cool! Lexington is also an amazing town with great schools, but quite expensive. Bedford is a slightly more affordable neighbor with great schools. Feel free to wall me if you have questions or want a quick opinion on anything! I have been here my whole life... grew up in the north shore, and now I'm down south!
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@GreenThumb: I grew up in the area (very close to Acton). If you want to wall me where your hubs will be working I'd be happy to help with towns to check out!
ETA I saw you posted that he'll be in Woburn. Winchester is an AWESOME town. Expensive, but awesome.
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@GreenThumb: yay!! Where are you moving from? I hope you love it here! Where (roughly) are you looking? I live directly west of Boston, near rt 495, but I work on rt 128/95 north west of Boston. I agree with Mrs. Wagon about Acton, and also Concord, Carlisle, Bedford, all in that same area. Further north & west Westford is good, and less west North Andover is very nice, though I'm not as familiar with the 'north shore' as I am with 'metro west' (directly west of Boston). Let me know if you have any specific questions
ETA: all of the towns I mentioned are fairly close to Woburn, but my pick would be Lexington if you can swing it (very $$) or Bedford. There's also Winchester and Wilmington which are close to Woburn and very nice.
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Welcome to the Boston area!!! I was born and raised, and still here. Woburn is a great location easy to get to. MA is pretty small so you could be anywhere and pretty much have a 30-45 minute commute. Like PP said Acton, Boxbourgh, Westford, Harvard are all great towns with top school and you can get more for your money there than Lexington, Concord, and other top towns on or closer to 95. Littleton and Chelmsford are also very nice.
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@MamaMoose: He will be in Woburn, so we'd like to be close by without too much of a commute.
@Shutterbug: Thanks for your thoughts on towns - that is definitely helpful! We are coming from Wisconsin (been here for 3 years), but I grew up in CT and my husband grew up MA so we are basically coming back home! I've lived at the Cape and in central MA so I'm really happy to be back in the area. We miss the ocean!!
@mrs. wagon: Thanks so much! I'm so glad to be moving to a place where there are so many Bees!
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@PurplePumps: Thanks so much for the advice! After being in Wisconsin for 3 years I feel like I'm moving to the BIG city, but I do have to remember that the everything is so much closer in MA. I'm looking forward to that again.
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Winchester is great and is getting a brand new high school and is very close to Woburn, but is pretty expensive. Lexington also has great schools a nice downtown, but it's lots of new construction too . Arlington is getting more and more popular and has good schools and excellent access to the city. Acton is probably the best bang for your buck in terms of quality of schools vs home price and could work since you aren't commuting to downtown. I think I would rent in Lexington or Arlington and explore from there!
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Welcome back then! I live in NH now but my family is all from Arlington. My preferences are Arlington, Lexington and Belmont
My cousins live in North Andover and love it. There are a lot of great places.
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Welcome home to the Boston area! agree with PP about Lexington, Winchester, etc. Also Melrose, Arlington, Concord are all nice. Traffic on 95/128 is kind of a beast though, same with Route 2. I think its great you are renting for a year so your DH can see how the commute goes...
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Welcome back to Mass! We live near Woburn and love our area. We considered Acton because of the schools but honestly the traffic and high property taxes turned us off. Like other people mentioned, Winchester, Belmont and Lexington are great towns and we'd love to live there but it's so expensive. Other towns to consider nearby are Reading, North Reading, Wilmington, and Andover. You can most likely avoid some of the traffic on the highways in those towns. Slightly east is Lynnfield which I think is also a good town. We narrowed our search down to Andover and Reading because they both have decent school systems and town water/sewer. That was a major thing for us because we didn't want to deal with a well or septic tank. Good luck with your search!
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Ooh, yeah, the towns out are definitely a little more likely to have well/septic. We were a little concerned about that at first having never dealt with it, but it's been 4 years in our house and well/septic have been no problem. Only problem was when you lose power, you lose water too. Other than that, well water = no water bill!
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My number one pick would be Concord. DH and I would move there in a heartbeat if the commute weren't so long.
Winchester, Lexington, Lincoln, and Bedford are all great towns with great schools systems (but all quite pricey). Acton and Carlisle are more affordable but also very nice (both have excellent schools as well, especially Carlisle which shares with Concord). Melrose is considered an "up and coming" town for young families.
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I live NW of Boston and I work in the next town over from Woburn :). Unless you're a millionaire, Lexington and Bedford are probably going to be out of the question. I would check out Winchester, Wilmington, and maybe Andover (nice but more $$).
@PurplePumps: We're in the process of buying a house with well/septic and we were floored that practically every town we were looking at didn't have city utilities for that stuff.
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@ShootingStar: lol. Me too, I grew up in Newton so moving out north west was a shock to me. We couldn't afford anything in the 95 area so we concentrated on Acton, Boxbourgh, Harvard, Stow, which was practically all well/septic and just came to accept that we'd have to learn to deal with that.
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@PurplePumps: Yeah, we couldn't afford anything inside 95 either (that had a good school district) so we were looking in Littleton, Westford, Chelmsford and Tyngsborough. And the only one to have town utilities was Chelmsford. I'm from upstate NY where you pretty much only have septic/well if you live in a really rural area. I couldn't believe that 40 minutes outside of Boston in well populated areas there was no town water or sewer. And DH grew up in the city of Boston so he was at a loss too.
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@skipra: we are in Reading so I second that suggestion
Great schools, very family friendly, and a nice commute to Woburn or Boston. We live it here!
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I am close to that area too! I would love to live in Lexington or acton- but you need real money to even get in there! Andover is nice- North andover too. Bedford- even Billerica isn't that far. RT 3 traffic can be a BEAR - so keep that in mind the further North west you go!
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@ShootingStar: I guess it's just cause the towns are so old and that's what they started with, or it cost too much to run everything. I would have LOVED gas heat, but I was talking to a friend in Chelmsford who had it on his street and had to pay to run it from the street to his house, and that alone was like 7k. The newer developments have it though, but those houses cost a fortune. We have a new development just 1 mile down the road from us that has gas lines, but they'll never run it down past us. =(
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@PurplePumps: I grew up in Newton too!
@GreenThumb: I'm so jealous you get to move from WI to the Boston area. We live in Iowa now, and I sooo want to move back to MA. -
@skibobrown: haha! Do I know you?? Did you go to North or South? I'm class 97 from South.
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Welcome back to MA! I live on the North Shore and my commute (to a city west of Boston) takes me right through Woburn every day, it is a great town! I think all the suggestions you have above are great, the only thing I would add is that if your husband is working 9-5ish hours, you might want to focus on towns south or west of Woburn. Traffic on ANY major road going towards Boston is INSANE during those times, while you'd have no problems going away from the city. I work 11AM to 7PM most days, and can commute 50 miles in 45 minutes. But when I have to be at work at 9 or 10AM, it takes me an average of 2-3 hours to get there.
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@PurplePumps: Probably not. I'm '99 from North.
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@Sparkler: @Sunshine1810: @psw27: @skipra: @catlady: @ShootingStar: @bushelandapeck: @cheert16: @skibobrown: @Rocker2014: Thank you all so much for the advice! It is so helpful to get inside info when you haven't lived in a place before. There is so much to think about! I'm glad we are renting first so we can check out a lot of these towns before we have to buy. Can't believe we will be moving in a few short months!
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@ShootingStar: wait you're moving? Congrats! Which town?
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@Shutterbug: As of last week we are in agreement on a house in Tyngsborough :-D. We close at the end of July.
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Welcome back to the area. I live 10 mins from Woburn, and I have some family that lives there. NW of Boston is a great area - lots of the suggestions so far are pretty pricey...Lexington, Winchester, etc. Maybe check out Burlington, Wilmington, or Billerica? or even Tewksbury? All are a pretty quick commute and nice towns.
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Yay for moving back to MA! I grew up on CC and we live in NH now - but some of my favorite towns surrounding that area are Acton, Concord and Groton (I love Groton). Congrats and good luck!!
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This is an awesome area to live in. I live in a neighboring town to Woburn and love it. Feel free to message me with specific questions about the area.
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We lived in Lowell for 2 years and it actually is a much nicer city than it used to be. But, I am also partial to Burlington, Stoneham, Woburn area. They are all really convenient to the city and you can get many places with or without getting on the highway. We live on the Cape now, so I can't give real specifics but good luck!
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We live in Wakefield and love it! Very family friendly and close to highways, Boston, etc. I also love Melrose, Reading, North Reading, Andover, Stoneham, Lynnfield, Wilmington- all very close to Woburn as well.
Agree with others- unless you are loaded, Winchester, Lexington, Concord, Bedford are all very very pricey- same with alot of the towns in the NW Boston area.
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