So I’m moving to MA. I will be working in Andover, my husband in Andover 75% and Marlborough 25%. We’ve been looking at housing, and are sticker-shocked. The conclusion we’ve come to… Lowell. The housing is reasonable (relatively), and it’s closer to Andover, but a workable drive to Marlborough.
Now for the rub. I know nothing about Lowell, and what I’ve heard, isn’t necessarily glowing. I have two dogs (50lbs) and would like to be near a park, or someplace safe for morning walks. Pawtucketville? Highlands?
So tell me about Lowell, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Are you purchasing or renting?? Lowell to Marlborough seems like it would be a long drive.
Lowell is an old mill town and it was pretty rundown for a long time. There is some beautiful red brick architecture and it is said to be revitalising but it still seems full of immigrants who can’t afford to live elsewhere. Have you considered other towns on Route 3? My parents live in Bedford now…my brother-in-law and his family are from Andover and it takes us about 15 minutes to get there our house. Chelmsford would be awfully close too.
My cousin owns apartment properties in Lowell. We joke about him being a slumlord but it could be pretty nice.
Lowell has a bad legacy reputation but it did a great job of getting turned around over the past few years. It has a very distinctive (very old) mill town look. It even has some very striking canals that they cleaned up right downtown. The downtown area is very compact and walkable and it is a college town as well (U.Mass Lowell). You should take a look. It is a very memorable place. Lawrence is the real crappy place in that general area and stay far away from that.
Marlboro isn’t that far from Lowell (maybe 30 minutes or so). They are both on I-495 and it is an easy commute.
light strand, wow, I had no idea Chelmsford had gotten expensive but then it all has. One tip, colonial homes will always be more expensive. Try split level, or if you’re not fussy about size, cape architecture (They often have expansions). The prices are always cheaper.
You could also consider living right over the border in NH and commuting in.
I think the reason Chelmsford et al are so expensive is that it seems most houses are on really big pieces of property. But we were just looking at housing prices per square foot, and you just get a lot more house in Lowell then some of the more rural towns.
So is there any place to avoid (other than Lawrence)? Any neighborhoods which are sketchy? I looked at the Lowell urban planning and of course everything looks quite lovely.
BTW, if anyone ever plans to relocate, house shopping via internet sucks. I have a Realtor and my company would pay for some visits, but I only got three weeks notice, and now I’m drowning in information. Of course, my Realtor is helpful, but only as much as he can be with me in TX.
Massachusets also has some very restrictive “Sheeple” laws, if either of you enjoy shooting sports of any kind (Skeet/Trap/Sporting Clays/general plinking/Tourists…err…scratch that last one ) you’ll find Mass. firearm laws horribly restrictive, IIRC, Lowell also has a 2.5" blade limit on knives, a simple Swiss Army Knife is borderline, my Spyderco Delica (which i only use for opening boxes and packages, for Og’s sake) would be considered illegal
thank Og i live in Southern Maine…
if you can swing the drive, New Hampshire is more affordable, has no sales tax and no personal income tax, Massachusets, on the other hand, is informally called “Taxachusets” for good reason
Mass. has it’s good points as well, the non-metro areas are quite pretty, the people outside of the major metro areas (well, Boston, mostly) are rather freindly and welcoming (Bostonians have the unfairly-gained reputation of being rather cold and aloof even though that’s generally not the case)
however, the less said about Boston’s road system the better, it confuses even Natives…
good places to look in New Hampshire are the Portsmouth, Nashua, the Hampton area, Seabrook
I was going suggest New Hampshire as well. You are practically shopping near there already and it has its very good points. New Hampshire is right in the transitional zone between Texas and Massachusetts. Depsite wht you think, going from Texas to Massachusetts can be a culture shock (not even mostly good even though you may think that now). New Hampshire has just a little Texas in it. That is how regular people buy houses up near there.
Well, I was born in MI, and lived in MA (Haverhill) for a year, about ten years ago. I absolutely have hated TX since the day I moved here, so different=better to me.
It just that when I lived in Haverhill I was in an apartment, and Lowell was pretty sketchy back then (or rumored to be). I’ve spent ten years trying to get back to MA, so I just don’t want to be from the frying pan into the fire. My realtor is really focused on “everywhere but Lowell” so I wondered if there was an issue, or if he was just pushing pricer pieces of property.
What about Tewksbury? It is the same area but is nicer in a suburban kind of way. It isn’t high-brow but it is servicable and they have a wide range of housing options there. We go to Thanksgiving there to see relatives and it seems decent enough if not quite as fancy or pretty as other towns around it.
I don’t know your age or child situation but the sticker shock you are getting from certain towns has a lot to do with the quality of their school district. Lowell is not that great and I doubt it will be for a while. Not only is this a concern if you want or have children, but it also bodes for how fast your house is going to appreciate in the future. Chelmsford has a half-way decent high school that is only likely to get better as the town goes increasingly upscale (my memory of Chelmsford from growing up in ma is that it was a solid working/blue-collar community but I’m sure like many other towns it has changed/changing stripes). Andover is expensive because even their public school system is alright (they also have Phillips Academy). This is why people in towns like Newton, Lexington, Belmont etc. can demand outrageous prices for really really shitty old homes…also combined with proximity to Boston.
Depending on your age he may just be factoring in school district considerations.
I also suggest Tewksbury if you haven’t considered it…looks like Shagnasty beat me to the punch.
But hey, if you’re not concerned about school districts go ahead and buy a nice property in a gentrified part of Lowell. I love all the red brick buildings they have…I wonder if they’ve gone to loft yet.
Lowell is not great, but you can think of Lawence as the Detroit of MA.
Only worse.
Our new Gov, known to all as Devoid, is a certified Moonbat. The drunken sailors in the House and the Senate are trying to stop all his tax raising plans—as they get minimal-show jobs for their brothers-in-law.
Remember, in Massachusetts, they would realy like you not to have a gun, but there are no weird restrictions on dildos and vibrators.
Tewksbury is one of the areas the Realtor has been pushing heavily. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been one single house that I have liked in Tewksbury. Moreover, I plan on staying this time. I’ve moved four times in seven years, and I want this one to be the last one. (at least for a long time).
I don’t have kids, and don’t plan to, so I really don’t give two hoots about schools. I’m more concerned about quality of life: Parks, neighbors, broadband access, things to do… that kind of thing. And like I said, I have dogs, so I would like a place with sidewalks. I know that sounds goofy, but many places don’t have them, and stuck walking my dogs in the middle of the road, not the safest place me me to be.
Oh, and thanks for the heads-up on the dildo thing Vorlon
I don’t know about parks but Lowell is starting to get decent restaurants, esp. ethnic. My parents and my cousins were just up there for Indochinese :eek: . I’m going to be home for Memorial day and it’s high on my list of things to do.
I could easily see Lowell becoming a hipster location soon enough-esp. for businesses moving into those restored mills which might bring their employees to the area. Just to give you an idea, when I moved to MA in 1990 there were these huge red buildings (i’m guessing they must have been old boston companies) that were empty and abandoned with broken glass right along memorial drive. Within years they had been restored and turned into offices. Areas that I used to consider “bad” growing up-like Central Sq., are now apparently hipster central.
So yeah, I’d go for it but I’d stick to the areas I know seem to be developing, like the downtown district.
Take a look at Dracut. It is right next door to Lowell, and it is a semi-rural town (although becoming more suburban each year as more people discover its location and reasonable housing prices) with low crime rates and a traditional New England feel. My wife grew up there and much of her family still lives there.
) you’ll find Mass. firearm laws horribly restrictive, IIRC, Lowell also has a 2.5" blade limit on knives, a simple Swiss Army Knife is borderline, my Spyderco Delica (which i only use for opening boxes and packages, for Og’s sake) would be considered illegal