How to Choose a Place to Live

We had three main criteria in looking outside of NYC for a new home.

1. Proximity to NYC.
The kids have six grandparents and two uncles and their families, all of whom live on the UWS (that's "Upper West Side") of Manhattan. There was also my unicycle club, which meets at Grant's Tomb (UUWS).

2. Strength of School System.
Obviously, we had to take that into account, given that we have three school-aged kids and the fact that I am a teacher and would love someday to teach where I live. For now I'm commuting to Manhattan (see #1 -- another advantage of living near NYC), but one day I'd like to teach here and tutor a bit on the side.

3. Affordability.
We knew we'd be doing well with the sale of our place in Brooklyn but that we'd still have to take out a smallish mortgage. Our goal was to follow the 4-4-4 rule that we invented:

4-4-4 Rule:

4 bedrooms
4 acres
400,000 dollars

We managed to find something in the neighborhood of all three. Our main house is a large 3BR with an extra room currently used as a conservatory (ok, it was the best place to stick the piano). If the kids didn't mind sharing a room between two of them, we'd be all set. As it happens, they continue their practice, brought from Brooklyn, of all sleeping in the same room in adjoining beds, but this time Emmett has a separate room and the girls ostensibly share the other space. We'll see how that plays out in a few years. The house sits on over 7 acres, which is great. The houses on our private road are all separate enough that we can't see each other but we can check in on each other when necessary. We also have nabes on either side of us, but again, we're pretty far spaced. We've met all but one of our neighbors, and they're all really nice. Amazingly, the boy next door was born in the same hospital as Emmett on the exact same day! And we managed to keep the price in the $400,000 range, and that was nice, too.

My commute calls for me to take a bus into Manhattan each day. The ride is only 90 minutes each way, and I can unicycle between each bus depot and home quite easily. Both commutes are five and a half miles, so I get to ride eleven miles a day, which is about what I was doing when I worked at Packer. So far, so good.