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[deleted] t1_j8tlp09 wrote

Hey OP, sorry you're getting a lot of hate here.

So it seems like you want to live in a rural mountainous area. Is there a specific reason you are interested in PA specifically? Or are you interested in other Northeastern mountainous areas as well?

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gregv64 OP t1_j8us459 wrote

We are looking at NY and VT as well. PA just seemed reasonably affordable and not so much govt oversight like NY. i do see tons of great schools according to niche, in the souther ny state line that borders PA, nice mountains still. the Adirondracs are gorgeous, i dont see quite as many home prospects for sale there. West VT is also on the menu.

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[deleted] t1_j8v2srj wrote

I would visit all of these places. They have different vibes, for sure.

I will say, PA is more affordable for a reason. Rural PA is much poorer and also has worse schools than rural Northern New England (and also Upstate NY, I think, but I'm not as familiar with NY).

Politically, rural PA is more conservative than rural New England and New York.

You only mentioned VT, but NH and ME are mountainous states as well, but they are the more conservative New England states, which I presume aligns with you more based on your comment. However, "conservative" for New England is quite different than in other regions in the country as they are generally more moderate.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that I really recommend you visit all of these Northeastern states. They each have their own flavor with their own pros and cons. Hope this helped.

Edit: I noticed you mentioned concerns about fracking. I'm not familiar enough to know the ins and outs about it in PA, but I know that it's not a concern in the other Northeastern states.

Additionally, idk how important big mountains are to you, but PA has the smallest mountains in the interior Northeast. They get much larger as you go north. If you visit, you'll see

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gregv64 OP t1_j8vh8wm wrote

Appreciate the insight. I did see NY banned all fracking over 10 years ago. How are places like elmira, ithica, binghamton? I see a bunch of A rated schools there so thats good.. ME is absolutely stunning, we honeymooned there along the entire coast. Unfortunately too far from family in Toronto. NY state may be the way to go for us. Adirondacks look very nice.

NY property taxes scared me away at first but then realized the 2 places on zillow i saw and called about did in fact have 15k/a year taxes-zillow estimated them at 12. Then 5 others i called about, zillow estimated 12+ when they were actually all under 5k and 20+ acres. Cant trust everything on the internet..

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[deleted] t1_j8wppgb wrote

Gotcha, that makes sense.

I'm not too familiar with Upstate NY. I'm more familiar with New England. I know Ithaca is home to Cornell University so it has a lot of young people and I've heard it's a nice college town.

I've heard Binghamton used to not be as nice but I think it's gotten better? Don't quote me on that.

Don't know anything about Elmira.

You could probably knock out all those places if you took a few days road trip to check them out.

Edit: Upstate NY is a large area so you could also try asking in one of the NY subreddits for some more guidance

Edit 2: the areas of NY you mentioned aren't actually near the Adirondacks. They aren't flat, but the Dacks are further Northeast and are significantly bigger

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