Lived there once, this is my abstracted hearsay:
For 5 years, buy, don't rent. As first time buyer you can get a no money down mortgage without PMI (some federal program)
Whethersfield (southern side, not hartford side 20min on RT9, reasonable real estate)
Rocky Hill (25 min on RT9, some semi-decent rentals)
Farmington (expensive real estate, bearable taxes, good schools short drive)
Avon (no rentals, $$$$$real estate, excellent schools)
Simsbury (no rentals $$$ real estate, excellent schools)
Plainville (more blue collar, cheaper real estate, hit or miss schools)
New Britain (some good polish neighbourhoods, reasonable real estate, crappy rentals, crappy schools, must go to one of the parochial ones)
West Hartford ($$$$$ few rentals, best location)
Newington (blue collar, hit or miss schools, reasonable real estate)
Don't move to Hartford itself.
Don't move to anything east of the river. The drive accross the bridge is murder during evening rush hour.
Are you going there for a surgery residency ? Then the ONLY place you want to be is West Hartford or maybe Newington. The surg residents rotate mainly to the big hospitals in Hartford itself and take plenty of home call in higher years. You don't want to be in any of the suburban towns mentioned above if you have to shlep you but in at 6pm to see an admission.
