So staying along the river in South Hadley only, has beautiful views and homes. Agreed that other parts aren’t the same.

Yes, my hope is to find other remote jobs and/or get out of the rat race of corporate America, particularly if we can get a cheaper house out in Western MA!

Is that a bad thing ha? Do share.

Sparse suburban is a term used when searching for homes, like on Niche.

We both work from home so we’re not tied to a commute right now. Who knows if that’ll change in a few years, but we’d prefer not to live too close to Boston and don’t have interest in the Cape or north of Boston at this time since it’s far from both of our families.

Thanks for the effort! I didn’t want to burden folks with more criteria. Your Wilbraham rec is interesting as I just saw a house on Zillow there but didn’t know how the town was, so I’ll check it out! Thanks.

I definitely read Groton wrong as I’ve never heard of Groton, ha. Thanks for the Grafton area suggestions, I haven’t checked those out.

You’re right I guess it is unnecessary, who cares who I’m buying it with. And the word feels weird every time I try to use it, but whenever I say partner people assume I mean a woman and then get all confused when I talk about him later. Everything I’m saying here leads back to society being weird. Ah.

600-800, preferably a newer build or renovated/updated.

I’ve been very interested in that area, but driving randomly through Grafton and Upton it seemed the towns were dead (no one walking around, no bustling shops or small mom and pop stops) so it didn’t give a great first impression. Is it worth a deeper review?

We’re about to have kids, and i love having places to take my nieces and nephews so I’m definitely interested in towns who have a lot of activities for the kids!

Is there a war on the word fiancé that I’m unaware of? Odd.