West Orange and surrounding (house, school, taxes)
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I loved ER. Have looked at Livingston, but some-how did not find it to to be happening, looked at West-field, very cute but you get very little for what you pay for, Cranford was another place we loved but saw was badly effected by Irene, Loved Summit too. So far my favt has been ER in WO, but thats because they only other property we saw in WO was Vizcaya(expensive and upclass but no buses err-connectivity to take you to NYC)
Good luck with your search, do post if/when you zero in on your location. Might help us too.
Sorry, not meaning to Hi-jack this thread, I am also looking to buy a house, but not sure about the locality yet, How is WO when compared to downtown jersey city or Hoboken, crime, schooling and neighborhood demographics wise? I am looking to buy something in Eagle Ridge. Is that part of West Orange where Eagle ridge is, better than Hoboken or Jersey City Downtown?
It's not even comparable. Eagle Ridge is a suburban gated community with a strip mall outside its gates. Hoboken is a renovated upscale city. Two entirely different places. Schools in WO are certainly better than Hoboken or JC.
Why are the taxes so high? Partly it's Essex County, home of the basket cases of Newark, Irvington, Orange, and East Orange. I'm not sure why it's higher than other Essex County towns. I'm hoping all the people buying the 700K+ homes up between Northfield and Mount Pleasant will help some, but I doubt it.
lots of people like to point to "Essex County" as why West Orange taxes are so high. I haven't done great comparisons, but Essex county taxes are actually not that bad, due to Essex county generating a lot of revenuew through housing federal immigration prisoners, and other things.
I was talking to a few neighbors this weekend and one had a logical explanation that I hadn't thought of...West Orange is largely residential. Looking at other Essex County towns, most of them have some sort of shopping center, some more than others. We really don't have much as far as commercial properties helping with the local tax burden....
I think Cedar Grove has less commercial property than WO, but their effective tax rate is over 40% less. I'm not sure I'm buying that reason.
I think Cedar Grove has less commercial property than WO, but their effective tax rate is over 40% less. I'm not sure I'm buying that reason.
You're forgetting that West Orange has nearly 50,000 residents. Cedar Grove has barely over 10,000. Because it's such a large town there is a higher cost of services. For example, WO has a fully paid fire dept., but Cedar Grove is a volunteer dept.
You're forgetting that West Orange has nearly 50,000 residents. Cedar Grove has barely over 10,000. Because it's such a large town there is a higher cost of services. For example, WO has a fully paid fire dept., but Cedar Grove is a volunteer dept.
that much? aren't school taxes the bulk of the tax bill, not "services"? what about livingston? effective tax rate is much lower than WO (close to CG) and has triple the population of CG.
You're forgetting that West Orange has nearly 50,000 residents. Cedar Grove has barely over 10,000. Because it's such a large town there is a higher cost of services. For example, WO has a fully paid fire dept., but Cedar Grove is a volunteer dept.
good point. hadn't fully thought about that. here's the table i got from the county site. the left is the "general" rate, but the right is the effective rate, which is based on what market value instead of assessed value. the table is a year old, so it W.O. general v effective is way out of whack, but when the new table comes out, it should reflect W.O.'s recent assessment. i'd love for west orange to be closer to the middle of this table. i see no reason for us to be at the bottom. as for fire departments, why not rely more heavily on volunteer stations, and have less paid firemen?
Town General Effective
FAIRFIELD TWP 1.556 1.548
ESSEX FELLS TWP 1.721 1.593
MILLBURN TWP 1.794 1.641
CEDAR GROVE TWP 1.845 1.657
ROSELAND BORO 1.833 1.681
NORTH CALDWELL TWP 1.925 1.72
NEWARK CITY 3.18 1.786
WEST CALDWELL TWP 4.205 1.863
LIVINGSTON TWP 2.059 1.955
CALDWELL BORO TWP 2.245 2.052
VERONA TWP 2.416 2.15
NUTLEY TWP 2.777 2.387
BELLEVILLE TWP 2.707 2.492
MONTCLAIR TWP 2.519 2.495
MAPLEWOOD TWP 4.877 2.542
BLOOMFIELD TWP 3.077 2.606
SOUTH ORANGE VILLAGE TWP 2.629 2.641
GLEN RIDGE TWP 2.907 2.66
ORANGE CITY TWP 3.079 2.721
WEST ORANGE TWP 12.983 2.954
EAST ORANGE CITY 3.176 3.175
IRVINGTON TWP 3.284 3.301
yeah, sure "over 40% less"....meaning cedar grove's effective rate is 1.657% and west orange's is 2.954%....or a 1.297% difference. it's nothing to laugh at, but the it's much less dramatic than saying 40%. yes, we pay more in west orange. we have a larger population. we have more city services. i'd love to see my taxes lower, but there are a lot of factors, and commercial space is certainly a decent factor. look at parmus's taxes...
that much? aren't school taxes the bulk of the tax bill, not "services"? what about livingston? effective tax rate is much lower than WO (close to CG) and has triple the population of CG.
livingston has way more commercial property as well. school taxes definitely hurt us, but we have a lot of facilities due to the size of the population.
i'm not fully sure how the population overall effects the cost of services either. i spoke to my councilman about our 2 weekly garbage pickups for instance, and he pointed out that it is marginally more expensive to have the 2nd night of pick up, since either way we would be producing the same amount of garbage, in theory. of course, i produce barely enough garbage for weekly pickup, since i recycle almost everything and i compost a lot of what's not recycleable....
What is the difference between General Tax Rate and Effective Tax Rate? Amd why is WO GTR at 13% when all others are around 2-4%??
as i said above, the general rate is based on the town's assessment. west orange just did an assessment, so the new general tax rate is around 3.4%. the effective tax rate is an estimation to normalize across towns for comparisons...based on market values. so the 13% WO rate was based on assessments from the 80s with houses assessed well below $100,000....
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