Orange County (Union, New Providence: house, neighborhood, buy)

[comparetto5]

I noticed the last post regarding Orange county. Could someone give me more info. We are moving from Maryland to NJ/NY in the next few months. My husband will be communting to Wall St everyday and we are trying to keep his communte to 1 hour. We have been looking in the New Providence area (Union county)NJ. We even went looking there last week. We can afford up to 650K for a house but that doesn''t buy much there. the schools are good and the neighborhood and community seem great, but, property taxes are a killer.

Should i look at Orange county instead? Are the schools just as good as the NP area. What about property taxes and I heard you have to pay school taxes in NY?

Thoughts anyone. If so what area of Orange should I be looking into?
MAC

[pixieshmoo]

I'm not saying this to be rude, so please don't take it that way, but Orange County is in New York. This is the NJ forum so I don't know how helpful we will be to you. I personally don't know much about Orange County NY except that that's where they have the Orange Cty. Fairgrounds (it's a racetrack, they've held concerts and of course, fairs...sort of hickish but loads of fun). If I'm not mistaken, I don't believe it's one of the more expensive counties either. But unfortunately, that's all the info. I can offer you on that. Seriously, try the NY forum, or maybe you'll luck out in here too...good luck!

[winnie]

Hi, I believe you were talking about one of the threads I was recently in

You are looking for a house under 650K and within an hour to Manhatten?

For that elevated price range, I would suggest Greenwood Lake, Warwick or Monroe if you want to live in Orange County and have under an hour commute.

Doing a routine search on realtor.com I found a brand new built house in Warwick NY:
$389,900
3 Bed, 2.5 Bath
2,200 Sq. Ft.
2.6 Acres

In Monroe, - 10 year old house in awesome shape
$399,999
3 Bed, 2.5 Bath
2,400 Sq. Ft.
0.53 Acres

and one more, a brand new built colonial in Monroe:
$439,900
4 Bed, 2.5 Bath
2,800 Sq. Ft.
1.3 Acres

I have to say I am shocked at the housing prices there. They really seem to be falling since last summer when I was trying to relocate my dad. That same house in Monroe was going for about 80K more last summer.

Your property taxes run 2.5-3.3% per 100K of assessed value. So a house appraised at 200K would net between 5 and 6K in taxes a year, but if the house is your residence you get like .5% off in the form of STAR exemptions. The only way to really get a handle on it is to talk to a realtor from that area.

School taxes are seperate from town tax, but they are usually expressed as one lump sum. It is generally School Tax that accounts for the bulk of your payment.

With the evening out of the housing market here, I would suggest looking into Southern Orange County before Northern. While I like Northern OC very much for the quality of life (and we are not hicks BTW!) these prices in Warwick really are eye opening!

[pixieshmoo]

I didn't mean you guys were hicks I meant the fairgrounds because of the racetrack and such. However, I haven't been there in about 10 years so who knows what I'm even talking about LOL... but when I went to a concert there we were sitting on and standing on bales of hay...I'm from a more city-like area here in NJ, so our concerts are at the arena...OC fairgrounds was a culture shock back then. But I like it there, so again, I wasn't trying to call you hicks, sorry