Boston, MA Area GwJr's

Thursday night food is cool, I'll be in the area anyway.

sometimesdee: I used Rosana's when I lived in Framingham. Reasonably priced, good service, didn't steal anything.

Glad to hear there's more interest in pre-PAX food. I'll go ahead and get a thread made this weekend.

Speaking of food, if anyone has suggestions for places to eat or drink around the WTC/BCEC area, could you please add them to this thread? I'm trying to compile a list of recommendations for GWJers coming to PAX from out of town.

sometimesdee wrote:

Does anybody know of any decent house cleaners in Metro West (around Framingham)? We're talking about cleaning an empty house before we move in.

We used The Maids before we moved here 7 years ago. I thought they did a good job, but it was a long time ago.

shoptroll wrote:

Glad to hear there's more interest in pre-PAX food. I'll go ahead and get a thread made this weekend.

Speaking of food, if anyone has suggestions for places to eat or drink around the WTC/BCEC area, could you please add them to this thread? I'm trying to compile a list of recommendations for GWJers coming to PAX from out of town.

Can't. Then people might go there. Sorry.

I might be available for post-PAX stuff, as that's the weekend we're moving.

Ed Ropple wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

Glad to hear there's more interest in pre-PAX food. I'll go ahead and get a thread made this weekend.

Speaking of food, if anyone has suggestions for places to eat or drink around the WTC/BCEC area, could you please add them to this thread? I'm trying to compile a list of recommendations for GWJers coming to PAX from out of town.

Can't. Then people might go there. Sorry. :(

Oh you're no fun!

I am lots of fun and I'll f*cking well prove it.

LIVER, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I'm down for thursday foods.

What loc are we generally aiming our food social vector?

I don't think you can ever go wrong with the North End, but that's mostly because it'll be not as packed as DtX/Commons/Back Bay/Seaport.

It'll probably be North End or around the BCEC area. North End is not only a little off the beaten path but it seems like most places don't take walk-ins which helps keep the tourists out

Offer on a house in Dedham accepted over the weekend! Looking for houses is not a barrel of laughs.

Looked at some houses in Newton and Needham (among other places) - crazy expensive list prices that were going for 75k to 100k OVER the lists! Saw one place that was very nice, but 820k for a *small* (1500 sqft house) that was a mobbed open house. Our realtor said "The seller wants all offers by 4pm and it will go for 900+". Insane.

Have flexibility in commute times, so Dedham made sense for us. Should be able to stop living in hotels and instead live in an empty house come May 1st or so.

Tach wrote:

Offer on a house in Dedham accepted over the weekend! Looking for houses is not a barrel of laughs.

Looked at some houses in Newton and Needham (among other places) - crazy expensive list prices that were going for 75k to 100k OVER the lists! Saw one place that was very nice, but 820k for a *small* (1500 sqft house) that was a mobbed open house. Our realtor said "The seller wants all offers by 4pm and it will go for 900+". Insane.

Have flexibility in commute times, so Dedham made sense for us. Should be able to stop living in hotels and instead live in an empty house come May 1st or so.

(tenative) Congratulations! I hope everything works out! We need to have a Boston n00b S&T!

North End. Awesome.

Tach wrote:

Offer on a house in Dedham accepted over the weekend! Looking for houses is not a barrel of laughs.

Looked at some houses in Newton and Needham (among other places) - crazy expensive list prices that were going for 75k to 100k OVER the lists! Saw one place that was very nice, but 820k for a *small* (1500 sqft house) that was a mobbed open house. Our realtor said "The seller wants all offers by 4pm and it will go for 900+". Insane.

Have flexibility in commute times, so Dedham made sense for us. Should be able to stop living in hotels and instead live in an empty house come May 1st or so.

Congrats!

My wife is dead set on Needham, so we're most likely going to rent there, then wait for something to come on the market.

We did put an offer in on a place, and got into one of those bidding wars where the lead bidder had more money than sense. You want to spend north of $700k for a place listed at FMV at $650K, be my guest.

Nice to hear your search ended well though! Dedham is nice. Plenty of good places to shop and eat, easy enough to get to Newton, Brookline, Needham, Wellesley if you're looking for a change of pace.

Can I ask why your wife is set on Needham?

This is a discussion that I had with our realtor this weekend. I asked "Why are people so focused on living in Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington?" and the answer seemed to be "People want to live there because other people want to live there."

Needham in particular I find weird. Dedham is next door, the schools aren't quite as good (though the elementary school for us seems to be as good as anything else around (Oakdale)) but it's actually closer to the city.

We saw houses in Needham (and Lexington) that you'd have to put another 100k to make live-able listed for north of 800k.

(edit: just realised this could be read as in some way snarky - don't mean it that way, I'm honestly curious).

Tach wrote:

Can I ask why your wife is set on Needham?

This is a discussion that I had with our realtor this weekend. I asked "Why are people so focused on living in Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington?" and the answer seemed to be "People want to live there because other people want to live there."

Needham in particular I find weird. Dedham is next door, the schools aren't quite as good (though the elementary school for us seems to be as good as anything else around (Oakdale)) but it's actually closer to the city.

We saw houses in Needham (and Lexington) that you'd have to put another 100k to make live-able listed for north of 800k.

(edit: just realised this could be read as in some way snarky - don't mean it that way, I'm honestly curious).

Schools.

You get into Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington/Brookline and there is a strong expectation that you are going to College, and not just any College, but something top tier.

If you want to set your kid up right, the choice seems to be,go somewhere cheap and pay for private school, or pay for one of the hot neighborhoods with the great public schools.

And...Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington/Brookline? They've kept their home value. So, if you're looking for a longer term investment, you can be fairly certain that you will at least get your money back.

I think I at least at least am in for prepax food. I know a bunch of us get in mid day Thursday staying at the W.

Wow... just wow. Sure, we're concerned about good schools, but I guess we're willing to put work into an okay school system. And for the prices in Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington/Brookline, they had damned well better keep their value. More power to those who can afford to live there. Literally.

rabbit wrote:

I think I at least at least am in for prepax food. I know a bunch of us get in mid day Thursday staying at the W.

Cool. I was really hoping we could've had some of the podcast crew show up for Thursday dinner but I think I started asking about interest too late.

Did I miss the details for that? I'm bad at things.

things like posting, too

Ed Ropple wrote:

Did I miss the details for that? I'm bad at things.

Working on it right now!

Here you go.

mateo wrote:
Tach wrote:

Can I ask why your wife is set on Needham?

This is a discussion that I had with our realtor this weekend. I asked "Why are people so focused on living in Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington?" and the answer seemed to be "People want to live there because other people want to live there."

Needham in particular I find weird. Dedham is next door, the schools aren't quite as good (though the elementary school for us seems to be as good as anything else around (Oakdale)) but it's actually closer to the city.

We saw houses in Needham (and Lexington) that you'd have to put another 100k to make live-able listed for north of 800k.

(edit: just realised this could be read as in some way snarky - don't mean it that way, I'm honestly curious).

Schools.

You get into Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington/Brookline and there is a strong expectation that you are going to College, and not just any College, but something top tier.

If you want to set your kid up right, the choice seems to be,go somewhere cheap and pay for private school, or pay for one of the hot neighborhoods with the great public schools.

And...Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington/Brookline? They've kept their home value. So, if you're looking for a longer term investment, you can be fairly certain that you will at least get your money back.

So, I've looked at the data for YOY house prices. The only area that we were looking at that wasn't showing double-digit increases was Sudbury (This list includes Lexington, Arlington, Wayland, Westwood, Natick, Dedham, Needham, Newton and Wellesley). Sudbury was "only" showing 5% rise YOY.

Also, there doesn't seem to be anywhere that is "cheap" inside the 495 belt around Boston.

Of course, my personal opinion is that parenting has a lot more to do with academic success that any particular school district as long as the school isn't a complete disaster. Plus Needham/Newton/Wellesley/Lexington/Brookline, they're simply going to run out of houses which is going to cause any suburb with less good schools to improve because, well, people like me and sometimesdee are going to move into them JOIN US! JOIN THE REVOLUTION!

Mind you, "not so good" schools in MA would be considered pretty damned awesome anywhere else.

Offer accepted.

We found a split level ranch near Riverside that has been rented the last 5 years. The owner put in this amazing kitchen...but didn't do much else. The good thing is...it doesn't need much. Mostly cosmetic.

Thank god that's over.

mateo wrote:

Offer accepted.

We found a split level ranch near Riverside that has been rented the last 5 years. The owner put in this amazing kitchen...but didn't do much else. The good thing is...it doesn't need much. Mostly cosmetic.

Thank god that's over.

Congrats! I hope all goes well.

Apparently there's an enormous craft beer festival this weekend, open to the public with tasting of 300+ beers. Anyone interested in going? $50 fee seems like it covers everything from entrance to beer samples.

merphle wrote:

Apparently there's an enormous craft beer festival this weekend, open to the public with tasting of 300+ beers. Anyone interested in going? $50 fee seems like it covers everything from entrance to beer samples. :)

I'm almost positively down for that, Merphle. Let me get back to you tomorrow.

I might be at that summit as well. If so, wanna meet up? I'll send out PMs with my info.

Schmootle wrote:

I might be at that summit as well. If so, wanna meet up? I'll send out PMs with my info.

If I go, then most definitely. It'll be nice to meet some other GWJers, I haven't had the opportunity since I joined!