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People often suggest that Turtleboy Sports craps on places like Worcester, Fitchburg, Colrain, Southbridge, Webster, Ware, and Spencer too much. Not enough smiles and sunshine. But that’s only because we want the world to be a better place. And a big problem with dumpy towns and cities is that people don’t wanna send their kids to school there, and the property value plummets.
We spent months writing about the Spencer-East Brookfield School District because a lot of really good people in Spencer in particular were watching as the values of their homes plummeted. Who wants to buy a house in a town where the high school has no extracurricular activities, the ceiling is falling, and the adults are more concerned with killing the teacher’s union than helping kids enjoy their youth? No one. And just to show you the effect that schools and grime have on property value we decided to compare and contrast home prices in different towns so you can see just how dramatic of an effect it has.
Alright, let’s imagine you have two or three kids. The oldest is about to start school and you want to settle down in a place where they can call home. Ideally you’re looking for a house with 2,000-2,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, and 2 baths. You don’t wanna spend more than $400,00. Let’s see what you can get in Spencer:
Sweet digs!! You can be living large in the low 3 hundos.
Southbridge
Four bedrooms, two baths, 2,500 square feet. Less than $250,000. That’s how low you have to set the price in order to get someone to buy your house in the bridge. That’s what living in Southbridge does to your property value.
Webster
That’s a big freaking house. So why is it so cheap? Oh yea, because it’s in Webster.
Worcester
So in Worcester if you’re looking for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2,500 square foot place, you can expect to pay less than $300,000. If you’re willing to spend up to $400,000, the sky is the limit. You can pretty much get anything you want. Great for speculators. Not so great for homeowners. This is why teachers getting punched in the face at North High is a bad thing.
Fitchburg
The fact that you can get that much house for that cheap in Central Massachusetts is mind boggling. Of course it all makes sense when you factor in that you have to live in Fitchburg.
Now let’s check out some towns that have more stellar reputations and hardly ever seem to be the subject of Turtleboy blogs:
Shrewsbury
Yea sorry, if you want your 2,500 square foot house in Shrewsbury, it ain’t happening. Not unless you rob a few banks. Don’t get me wrong, you can still live in Shrewsbury and send your kids to palace that is Shrewsbury High School, but you’re just gonna have to settle a little bit:
Not that there’s anything wrong with those homes. They’re just about half the size of what you could get in Fitchburg or Worcester.
Westboro
Remember, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 2,500 square feet is what you wanted. In Westboro you’re about $200,000 over budget. Even a house that has 1,000 less square feet and one less bedroom is out of your price range.
Grafton
Grafton is a great town, and it’s high school is state of the art. Too bad your kids won’t be going to it. Luckily for the people who live there though, they can sell their homes and make a tremendous profit because they settled down in a town that doesn’t have Mambo Drinks in it.
Sterling/Princeton
These two towns are in the Wachusett Regional School District – a state of the art facility that is good at basically everything they do. Good luck finding a house in your price range, because they go pretty fast when they do come on the market.
Lancaster/Bolton
Nashoba Regional High School, which serves Lancaster, Bolton, and Stow (don’t even think about looking for a home in Stow) is also good at everything, and they’re friendly and safe towns. If you own a 2,500 square foot, 4 bedroom house then you can expect to get between $500-$600K for it. Because people actually want to live in your towns because the schools are good, the roads are plowed, and the street are safe.
Westminster
This is one town over from Fitchburg. ONE TOWN!!
Northboro
Algonquin Regional High School is also good at pretty much everything. This in turn drives up the value of homes there tremendously.
You get the picture. When crime is low and schools are good, property value goes up. And when property value goes up it means the tax base goes up, and then they get new high schools and better roads. So when people like Kevin Hayes come into power on your local School Committee, they’re not just making life miserable for your kids. They’re also ruining you financially. This is why we fight at Turtleboy Sports.
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23 Comment(s)
The prices in Worcester are tanking it because of the public school system and crime rates. Nice job Caesar Augustus! I wonder why no one wants to buy here (unless it’s a rental property)! If you want to live in Worcester and have kids you better have money to send them to a private school.
Mickey, they were only elected this past May. Gotta give them more of a shot then 3 months,and school hasn’t even started yet. Who knows maybe Tracy Crowe will get Zika or something and have to quit.
TB,
You haven’t talked about Spencer/EB school district in a while. Until we get a new superintendent our home values will go only down. We thought a couple of new School Committee members would improve in a huge way, not so much, mildly better if any. The bird lady is still up to her viscous ways. Parents aren’t stupid, they school choice their kids out in droves. Freshman class is done 40%. No sport teams have JV teams except for boys basketball. Football will be questionable to even field a team next year. Veteran teachers are leaving taking pay cuts to go to different school districts. High school lost their Award Winning theater teacher. Spanish teacher gone. Three Sped teachers left, one by choice, the two other 35 year veteran forced. ( you need to look into that one). No interviews for people applying for AD…………giving the job back to a incompetent individual. I could go and on.
School Committee need to do their job! Not cheerleaders! Martha and Jay you were elected for a reason, I am starting to wonder if I should of voted for Kurt
Anyone who doesn’t get this is too dumb to run a city.
When i was a kid, my parents owned a house on Killdeer Island Rd. Webster back in the 1980s. It was a 3BR / 2BA / 1550SQ plus a finished basement. It wasn’t directly on the water but “sandy beach” was right across the road. They purchased low and put $$ into the house and I remember them talking about the property value concern because of The slew of slumlord owned junk apts in town. They ended up deciding to sell and build a new house in Oxford. They sold the house for $140k back in 1988-89. Since that time the house was resold (forclosure?) for 105k in 1996 and again in 2010 for 152k.
So after 20+ years the seller was only able to get 12k more for the same house…on a lake? Webster has turned into a trash town and even if you own a nice home on the Douglas line (killdeer) or on the Dudley line, your property values suffer because many parents dont want to send their kids to Webster schools anymore. Its a shame
Well this article is a move in the right direction… but you are missing the big picture.
Instead of posting 10,000 Zillow listings, how about comparing how house values have held up? Then track that over to school system issues – much maligned Spencer was selling a lot of houses around 2004 – at a strong market value. A quick look at Zillow stats will back up. Back in 2004 Spencer schools were in decent shape, running under a good superintendent.
In 2011 Spencer brought in an outside superintendent that 18 months later was banned from the school buildings and left the district over $1 million in debt. School quality has slumped ever since and now most homes in Spencer are selling *under* their 2004 market price – in fact it’s fairly rare for people in the area to sell homes at a profit after 10+ years of home ownership.
That’s what a shitty school district gets you.
Housing prices go up and down all of the time. Sure there are some proven statistics that if a black or latino family moves in next door to you your property value just dropped by 50%. Good thing is they won’t be able to pay the rent and will end up moving to Detroit and then the value of your house goes back up.Of course there is a hitch involved, let’s say a minority has 5 kids and no husband? Then everything is paid by us and makes you wonder how many Mass lawmakers are putting the dick to bastard factories.
There are proven statistics that if a minority family moves in, value goes down 50%? Fuck why didn’t some one tell me, I could have been making a killing!!! You sir, are a fucking MORON
Not enough investment in education? How many more years are going to be wasted by people clinging to that long-debunked “fact”? An average of 13,000 dollars per year is spent on every pupil in the Worcester public school system, and things keep getting worse. Gee, maybe if taxpayers pumped $15,000 per pupil into the system, the City would improve, or how about $20,000? Real solutions do not include rewarding failure with cash.
Very well said! Supplying stupid Union teachers with more money doesn’t educate the child. Better teachers who are free to get fired and can work without archaic rules get the job done.
Public Schools produce some of the dumbest students and nearly all the dropouts. Dropouts become EBT suck ups we all pay for.
Those of us who fought through public schools and became productive members of society have earned the right to shit on assholes like Kevin who supports the leeches and cockroaches that have infected what used to be good immigrant neighborhoods.
What we need are large cans of industrial strength HoodRat Raid!
^ I hate to tell you this but, many of those junkies walking around downtown came from schools such as St. John’s, St. Peter Marian and Holy Name. Some even living in tents off those railroad tracks. And i don’t mean one or two…there are many.
You are a stupid cunt.
Your Mother.
Kevin, obviously you haven’t commented on this article yet, so your life doesn’t completely revolve around turtleboy, which is a good sign. But where are you now, and what are you doing? What else could you possibly be doing that’s more important to you than riding the turtle or riding your mother? I’m worried about you sweetie, please come see me… I’m ovulating…
Of all the things I’ve found about your son, this by far is my favorite
#1 Nov 19, 2013
FITCHBURG — Massachusetts State Police arrested the third most wanted sex offender in the state in Fitchburg Tuesday morning.
Lennell York, 42, was captured after a tip was received that he may be at a Ceder Street residence in the city.
With the assistance of Fitchburg Police, troopers with the Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section took York into custody after finding him hiding in a basement apartment.
York was wanted in Fitchburg District Court for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender.
In 1999, he was convicted for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in Fitchburg.
In 1993, York was also convicted indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 and procuring alcohol for a minor in Templeton.
Developing.
He’s out shopping. Golf club sales at Dick’s sporting goods.
Two things he likes the most!
How do any of these articles have anything to do with sports?
You haven’t told the complete story. I have also helped to destroy property values in Worcester by allowing any non-profit agency to locate in any Worcester neighborhood, west side, south side, east side, whatever. I don’t care what they do, methadone clinic, downscale nursing home, meth factory, you name it. As long as they cite the Dover Amendment, I’m their bitch. I can now boast that over 30% of properties in Worcester are non-profits, forever removed from the tax roles. This has created am irreversible death spiral where the remaining properties must be taxed at ever increasing rates. I’m so glad I live in Millis and I’m in on the gravy train of all these thinly disguised property management companies pretending to do charitable work out of the goodness of their black, greedy hearts. Oh, did I mention that the directors of these non-profits pull in six-figure incomes and hire out-of-town, low-skilled refugees, further straining the city’s resources? The people remaining in Worcester are so stupid I can get away with anything. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Rofl. This comment is the hardest I’ve laughed at reading turtleboy in about a month
If you live in Worcester, that comment should make you cry.
Houses in Massassoit road area of Worcester are selling for great prices
Nicer houses in that area have been knocking 10-20k off asking cuz they can’t sell. If you have 350k, why would you spend it in Worcester? You’re gonna add 10k a year sending your kid to Holy Name, and Holy Name couldn’t hold a candle to shrewsbury, wachusett, grafton
Source: I’m a real estate agent
If by great, you mean a house bought for $180k in 2004 will sell for $175k today, then yeah, the prices are great.