Best Places to live in Jersey close to New York? (Jersey City: real estate, property taxes)

[kalim2008]

Originally Posted by DessertRat

Of course, you say that you need to commute to Rutgers in New Brunswick, but that probably means that you're going to need to drive there, and it's really no harder to drive there from New York City than it is from Northern New Jersey, and in fact, some places, like Staten Island, will be closer to it.

I would really suggest AGAINST living in NY and commuting to Rutgers by car. Why? The TOLLS will kill you. They are extremely high when moving from one state to the other by car. For example, the Verrazano bridge crossing wil kill you by more than $9 everyday!l

[fischfan13]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

I would really suggest AGAINST living in NY and commuting to Rutgers by car. Why? The TOLLS will kill you. They are extremely high when moving from one state to the other by car. For example, the Verrazano bridge crossing wil kill you by more than $9 everyday!l

Stay in NJ.
Stay away from the large cities (Newark, JC).

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by kalim2008

I would really suggest AGAINST living in NY and commuting to Rutgers by car. Why? The TOLLS will kill you. They are extremely high when moving from one state to the other by car. For example, the Verrazano bridge crossing wil kill you by more than $9 everyday!l

There are tolls, but if you live in New York City and take the Verrazano to commute, probably even if you live in the southern part of Brooklyn, Rutgers should probably kick you out (and I'll let the folks who would be Rutgers material figure out why--there are a few reasons, more or less depending on where exactly in New York City you'd be).

There are cheaper ways to commute by car through New York City, and the tolls are less if you have EZPass. If you're going to be spending a lot of time IN New York City too (so that if you lived in New Jersey, more than one of your family will be regularly commuting/traveling there), you also save money by being in the city, as at the least, you're not paying the extra PATH, NJ Transit, bus and/or ferry fares.

It would also be far easier if you live in New York City to do away with a car altogether. There is a New Jersey Transit train to New Brunswick (and that line terminates at Penn Station in New York), and with all the talk on this particular forum about how easy it is to commute to New York City from various further places in New Jersey, surely it would be agreed that this commute is relatively easy (although obviously, you have to pay more for train fares the further you have to go on the line). I wouldn't be surprised if Rutgers has a free shuttle bus from the NJ Transit station to school, as long as you have your school ID, but you'd have to check on that. Heck, you should probably even ask if they have any kind of bus or car pool set up to travel from the Newark extension to New Brunswick.

City/urban living isn't for everyone (I talked about that some on my last post), and some regulars here will consistently recommend against it, as if it's for no one. Personally, I don't really want to live in a suburban area (I like the extremes--either urban or rural), but different people like different things, and the OP seems to like or think he'd like urban living, and that's fine.

For the OP, there are only a few areas that most New Yorkers would advise avoiding--Harlem, the South Bronx, Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, etc. I personally wouldn't staunchly avoid ANY area, including Harlem, which doesn't look like anywhere that I've ever considered a "ghetto", but I'm odd in that I don't feel unsafe anywhere--even if it does look like what I've considered a ghetto (and I've lived in some ghetto areas in the past and spent even more time hanging out in them with various friends who have lived in them). But I'm also not worrying about kids. If you want to know what areas are generally considered unsafe, asking on the New York City board and looking at whatever consensus there is will give you a decent idea.

The bigger determiner of where you end up would be your budget, and for that, you really need to work with a real estate agent (yes, usually even to rent an apartment). Most areas of New York City have a wide variety of prices available and a wide variety of quality, so you'd want to balance where you want to be (for work and where you'd probably be spending a lot of time for leisure) with what your budget is and what you're willing to do in terms of space and condition of the apartment/building. (For example, if you can do a smaller one bedroom for now in a building that hasn't been recently renovated, you can get closer to your ideal location given what you can afford.) In general, the further you get from the bottom half of Manhattan, the bigger the place you're going to be able to afford, and the better the quality it's likely to be, BUT, there are plenty of exceptions that you'll find depending on how hard you want to hunt/how much time you can wait to find the right place.

Note that you shouldn't contact a real estate agent in New York City until you're serious about finding a place there for two reasons: one, they're going to charge you a non-refundable fee to even look for you (I'm not sure how much now; it was $50 last time I worked with one, but that was just over 10 years ago), and two, even with a fee paid, if you do not seem that you'd be ready to take action on a place as soon as the agent finds what you're looking for, they're not going to bother much with it--in New York City, you even find stiffer competition for the attention of a real estate agent.

Maybe ask people in the NYC forum who recently worked with one for recommendations on a real estate agent, but note that a lot of agents "troll" (in the more literal sense) these boards, so don't go with someone just on one or two recommendations. I wouldn't be surprised if there's also some kind of agent rating/recommendation website around, but I'd have to search for one.

[john_starks]

Ft. Lee is great. can't get much closer to Manhattan. the bridge traffic can kill you sometimes though.

[yCf]

Someone mentioned Old Bridge and I think that's a great location.
You have buses to NYC, and it's around 30 mins to Rutgers NB.

It's near major roadway like Route 9, 18, GSP and NJ Turnpike. It's not particularly close to anything but you will have access to plenty of shops on Route 9.

I believe the school are decent and the property taxes are relatively low compare to towns nearby like East Brunswick.

I used to live in Ridgewood in Bergen county. I know the property is quite high in some of the towns in Bergen.

[Dorian]

Originally Posted by DessertRat

There are tolls, but if you live in New York City and take the Verrazano to commute, probably even if you live in the southern part of Brooklyn, Rutgers should probably kick you out (and I'll let the folks who would be Rutgers material figure out why--there are a few reasons, more or less depending on where exactly in New York City you'd be).

There are cheaper ways to commute by car through New York City, and the tolls are less if you have EZPass. If you're going to be spending a lot of time IN New York City too (so that if you lived in New Jersey, more than one of your family will be regularly commuting/traveling there), you also save money by being in the city, as at the least, you're not paying the extra PATH, NJ Transit, bus and/or ferry fares.

It would also be far easier if you live in New York City to do away with a car altogether. There is a New Jersey Transit train to New Brunswick (and that line terminates at Penn Station in New York), and with all the talk on this particular forum about how easy it is to commute to New York City from various further places in New Jersey, surely it would be agreed that this commute is relatively easy (although obviously, you have to pay more for train fares the further you have to go on the line). I wouldn't be surprised if Rutgers has a free shuttle bus from the NJ Transit station to school, as long as you have your school ID, but you'd have to check on that. Heck, you should probably even ask if they have any kind of bus or car pool set up to travel from the Newark extension to New Brunswick.

City/urban living isn't for everyone (I talked about that some on my last post), and some regulars here will consistently recommend against it, as if it's for no one. Personally, I don't really want to live in a suburban area (I like the extremes--either urban or rural), but different people like different things, and the OP seems to like or think he'd like urban living, and that's fine.

For the OP, there are only a few areas that most New Yorkers would advise avoiding--Harlem, the South Bronx, Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, etc. I personally wouldn't staunchly avoid ANY area, including Harlem, which doesn't look like anywhere that I've ever considered a "ghetto", but I'm odd in that I don't feel unsafe anywhere--even if it does look like what I've considered a ghetto (and I've lived in some ghetto areas in the past and spent even more time hanging out in them with various friends who have lived in them). But I'm also not worrying about kids. If you want to know what areas are generally considered unsafe, asking on the New York City board and looking at whatever consensus there is will give you a decent idea.

The bigger determiner of where you end up would be your budget, and for that, you really need to work with a real estate agent (yes, usually even to rent an apartment). Most areas of New York City have a wide variety of prices available and a wide variety of quality, so you'd want to balance where you want to be (for work and where you'd probably be spending a lot of time for leisure) with what your budget is and what you're willing to do in terms of space and condition of the apartment/building. (For example, if you can do a smaller one bedroom for now in a building that hasn't been recently renovated, you can get closer to your ideal location given what you can afford.) In general, the further you get from the bottom half of Manhattan, the bigger the place you're going to be able to afford, and the better the quality it's likely to be, BUT, there are plenty of exceptions that you'll find depending on how hard you want to hunt/how much time you can wait to find the right place.

Note that you shouldn't contact a real estate agent in New York City until you're serious about finding a place there for two reasons: one, they're going to charge you a non-refundable fee to even look for you (I'm not sure how much now; it was $50 last time I worked with one, but that was just over 10 years ago), and two, even with a fee paid, if you do not seem that you'd be ready to take action on a place as soon as the agent finds what you're looking for, they're not going to bother much with it--in New York City, you even find stiffer competition for the attention of a real estate agent.

Maybe ask people in the NYC forum who recently worked with one for recommendations on a real estate agent, but note that a lot of agents "troll" (in the more literal sense) these boards, so don't go with someone just on one or two recommendations. I wouldn't be surprised if there's also some kind of agent rating/recommendation website around, but I'd have to search for one.

It's funny that you mentioned real estate agents trolling the boards because I have a thread in the nyc forum and an agent posted replies on there and has been sending me direct messages. I heard harlem wasn't as bad as it use to be, is that true? does it have any good parts?

[Dorian]

Originally Posted by john_starks

Ft. Lee is great. can't get much closer to Manhattan. the bridge traffic can kill you sometimes though.

I've heard about ft. lee a few times, where does if fair in price relative to the rest of nyc? I can deal with the traffic, and if not I could always just jump off the bridge lol.

[Dorian]

Originally Posted by yCf

Someone mentioned Old Bridge and I think that's a great location.
You have buses to NYC, and it's around 30 mins to Rutgers NB.

It's near major roadway like Route 9, 18, GSP and NJ Turnpike. It's not particularly close to anything but you will have access to plenty of shops on Route 9.

I believe the school are decent and the property taxes are relatively low compare to towns nearby like East Brunswick.

I used to live in Ridgewood in Bergen county. I know the property is quite high in some of the towns in Bergen.

That sounds good, what about commute times to nyc?

[DessertRat]

Originally Posted by Dorian

It's funny that you mentioned real estate agents trolling the boards because I have a thread in the nyc forum and an agent posted replies on there and has been sending me direct messages. I heard harlem wasn't as bad as it use to be, is that true? does it have any good parts?

Well, I don't know what Harlem was like really before I moved to the area, which was in 1995. After having experienced ghettos in many other places--and even living in at least one--I couldn't believe Harlem the first time I went there. It was like, "This is a ghetto??!" There were much rougher areas in West Palm Beach in the early 90s! Harlem has a lot of very nice buildings. Of course, it has some not-so-good buildings, projects, etc. too, but heck, at least recently (and maybe even still now, I'm not sure though) people like Bob Dylan had a home in Harlem. There was even a Disney store there (although I'm pretty sure the Disney store is gone now, but that's not about Harlem so much as about a mismanagement mess that they got into with the stores--a majority of the stores that existed in the mid to late 90s have been closed). Harlem is still a complicated place socio-economically, but it's worth looking into.

[8-bit]

Hi Dorian, out of curiosity, are you moving here out of personal preference or for a job location? Pittsburgh to Bergen County NJ is going to be a very significant change of your lifestyle (I love Pittsburgh by the way). I've lived in Bergen County for over 20 years and I personally cannot wait to move far away.

I'd recommend Park Ridge NJ, Nutley NJ, Dumont/Cresskill/Tenafly NJ, Woodcliff Lake NJ, and Paramus NJ.

No offense to anyone who lives there but I would stay away from Hudson county as a whole. I grew up in North Bergen & lived there for years, and spent 4 years in college, in Jersey City. The property values there are much less. It's much more urban than Bergen County overall. Stay away from Union City & Jersey City.

I am sorry for the negative tone but Bergen County NJ is a place for executives and rich people. If you want to live in a decent town, expect to pay in the upward of $700k+ for a home that was built in the 80s, and it will have very little property and your neighbors will be at a short distance. If you are in the lower/middle or middle class, it will be a life where a lot of cutbacks from your annual lifestyle will have to be made. Everything is super expensive, from tolls to outrageous (!!!) property taxes. Several towns in Bergen County, especially Fort Lee, Cliffside Park, Palisades Park, Ridgefield and Ridgefield Park are becoming segregated and there is a lot of issues where jobs, real estate listings, grocery stores and other things are only written in a certain language, so only those certain people will know of them and everyone else feels unwelcome. It's unfortunate and nothing is ever done about it.

Sorry to be a downer but there's good and bad to moving here. If you or anyone in your family has a great job in NYC, your options to live in one of the nicer places in Bergen await you. Beyond that, there is a significant lifestyle adjustment to living in this area. That also goes for the work ethic here.