Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Andover is nice too.

I like this house https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Prospect-Rd-Andover-MA-01810/56029310_zpid/

Does op really want to be an hour outside the city?

It's really about 30 minutes. I grew up in the area. Good schools and very strong community.

Not with current traffic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Andover is nice too.

I like this house https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Prospect-Rd-Andover-MA-01810/56029310_zpid/

Does op really want to be an hour outside the city?

It's really about 30 minutes. I grew up in the area. Good schools and very strong community.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Massachusetts is very liberal so you might find some of the public schools to be “progressive.” Brookline, Lexington, Cambridge, and Belmont are all diverse and excellent school systems.

Thanks for this. I don't think we can afford the kind of house we want in places like Brookline or Cambridge. Possibly Lexington, and I'll have to look at Belmont.

Look in Arlington. It's a great town with an interesting history and a strong sense of community. As your kids get older, they will find it very easy to get around without you driving them as it's walkable, bikeable, and has easy access to public transport.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boston traffic is no joke. I would stick to towns near Wayland if you can work remote. Sudbury, Lincoln and Concord are all very progressive towns with great schools and lots of woods.

Can't stress enough that I would figure out the job before looking at towns.

This. Lock in your jobs before looking at towns, houses and schools.

Given that schools are town rather than county base, you may also find you are willing to use the excellent public school systems, which would presumably give you a larger budget for a house.

Thanks! We definitely plan to use the public schools when the kids get older, and we are still looking into it for their current ages. Are there public schools that have extensive outdoor time? We really want that for them while they are in the early years of schooling.

If we do go private, I'm not sure how to handle the timing of everything (need to commit to a private school, if we go that route, sooner than we would have job(s) and/or house identified).

--OP

What about Newton?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boston traffic is no joke. I would stick to towns near Wayland if you can work remote. Sudbury, Lincoln and Concord are all very progressive towns with great schools and lots of woods.

Can't stress enough that I would figure out the job before looking at towns.

This. Lock in your jobs before looking at towns, houses and schools.

Given that schools are town rather than county base, you may also find you are willing to use the excellent public school systems, which would presumably give you a larger budget for a house.

Anonymous wrote:Boston traffic is no joke. I would stick to towns near Wayland if you can work remote. Sudbury, Lincoln and Concord are all very progressive towns with great schools and lots of woods.

Can't stress enough that I would figure out the job before looking at towns.

This. Lock in your jobs before looking at towns, houses and schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Andover is nice too.

I like this house https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Prospect-Rd-Andover-MA-01810/56029310_zpid/

Does op really want to be an hour outside the city?

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have opinions on Natick?

Natick is pretty far out and doesn’t have the charm of some of the other suburbs.

Budget will be an issue for the closer in towns unless you trim your wishlist. Wayland is nice, but the commute will be longer than what you have in dc, Boston traffic may actually be worse than dc.

I love Boston... so diverse. My dear friend who lives there showed me so many different areas inside and outside. I even encourage my DS to go college in Boston in the near future
He will fit right in. such and diverse and colorful city. Best of luck

Anonymous wrote:Andover is nice too.

I like this house https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Prospect-Rd-Andover-MA-01810/56029310_zpid/

Boston traffic is no joke. I would stick to towns near Wayland if you can work remote. Sudbury, Lincoln and Concord are all very progressive towns with great schools and lots of woods.

Can't stress enough that I would figure out the job before looking at towns.

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have opinions on Natick?

I grew up in the area - Natick is a fine place to live. But it has none of the cachet of Newton or Brookline or any of the seaside towns w/quick downtown access like Hingham. Much more of a suburban feel. For example, it's more Vienna than Del Ray.

I imagine you'd get a ton more for your money in Natick. If you're comfortable with that kind of distance from Boston (e.g., a little further west from Newton) probably good to look at Sudbury or even Westborough, both small towns with very good schools. The further away from Boston you get, the more conservative the vibe tends to be, even if most of your neighbors anywhere in the general vicinity of Boston will almost certainly be liberals and/or Democrats.

Given that you're looking for a progressive private school, I might focus your search on that, and then pick the town based on proximity. Because public schools are town-based, rather than county-based, that often shapes house hunts in MA. Most of the kids who went to private schools when I was growing up went to Catholic school, but there are a few nearish Natick like St. Marks and Fay School that are worth checking out. Or Buckingham Brown & Nichols in Cambridge. I don't know if any of those qualify as progressive, though.

Andover is nice too.