Woodcliff Lake (work), Ridgefield Park live? (Paramus, Ridgewood: best city, rent, townhouse)

[pengrus]

My first post here. The best city data site on the internet.

We are planing to move from San Francisco bay area to New Jersey. Wife got an offer with a Pharma company in Woodcliff Lake. The recruiter has recommended Ridgefield Park to live.

We are in our early 30s, a 2 year old son, and we are currently at $200K a year income combined, with potential to grow. We don't really want to spend too much money on house and end up paying a lot of property tax.

The problem is that we have no idea what kind of house we can buy with $500k (ideally), or $700k, etc. We hope not to go over $700K. We only paid $150K for our Houston house! We probably will rent for a year or two before we buy.

So we want to find a good school district with nice environment. When we live in Houston, the house is big, and when we moved to SF bay area, we lived in a tiny townhouse. It'd be nice to have a single family house with better weather than Houston.

I heard from a friend who lives in New Jersey that they see deer in their backyard, how nice!

I have never been to New Jersey, but imagine it will look like those beautiful fall foliage scene in those movies...

Could you please recommend a few cities so that we can do more research on?

Many thanks!

[BestGuy Moving]

There are many nice town you can choose from. personally i like Glen rock, it is 15-20 min drive from woodcliff lake. Paramus is also a good option.
these are good towns to raise a family.

You will probably have to spend no less the 550 - 600k to buy a nice split type house with 3-4 bedrooms, basement and 2 bathrooms.
Good luck

[newmom2007]

I'm not sure why your recruiter thinks Ridgefield Park is a good option for you. In your price range, you can afford to live in many very nice towns that are much closer to WL. However, you might have some sticker shock when you see the property taxes.

Most of the towns in northern Bergen County have great school systems. I would take a look at Park Ridge, Montvale, and Hillsdale.

[joe moving]

Ridgefield Park, jsut my opinion is a huge step down from Woodcliff Lake and other towns that immediately surround your wife's new job. Look at all of th towns that surround WCL. Park Ridge Westwood Hillsdale Montvale etc. All very nice towns i believe.

[ImCurlybelle]

Eisai pharmaceuticals is in Woodcliff Lake, I live by there. GREAT town, LOVE that town- it's beautiful, quiet, upscale, and family oriented ... Too bad you didn't want to live around there. Ridgefield Park isn't even in the same neighborhood as far as family towns. I hate to be mean, but it's not nice at all ... It's part of the "armpit" of Bergen County ...

If you want to live in an area close by, you could go over the border into NY (15 minutes away) into Rockland County- Or you could look in Ridgewood (Beautiful,) Hillsdale, Paramus, Park Ridge, Mahwah, Oakland ... All NICE !!!!

Oh, and GREAT shopping by Eisai at Tice's Corner !!!

[openheads]

Originally Posted by ImCurlybelle

It's part of the "armpit" of Bergen County ...

By armpit you mean not a homogeneous sea of white people.

[JG183]

Originally Posted by openheads

By armpit you mean not a homogeneous sea of white people.

no, not just that.

RP is filthy, congested, old... no redeeming qualities

[openheads]

Originally Posted by JG183

no, not just that.

RP is filthy, congested, old... no redeeming qualities

Huh? You need to get out more...........
No where in Bergen Co is "congested" (other than the highways).
Filthy? I don't even know what to say about that. People mow their lawns & send there kids to school the same as all of those "body snatcher" uniform northern Bergen towns.
It's just a little more dense.

[JG183]

Originally Posted by openheads

Huh? You need to get out more...........

I drove down railroad ave. just last Saturday -- nothing has changed in RP since 1983

[pengrus]

Thank you everyone for all your kind advice. Sorry, my email notification did not work so I did not realize there are so many replies.

One thing that I said wrong before, the Ridgefield Park is Eisai's one current site, but they will relocate to Woodcliff Lake. So I was wrong that Recruiter recommended Ridgefield Park for live...

So we will focus on the cities around Woodcliff Lake, hopefully not too far away from New York?


By the way, anyone knows about Eisai? Are they pretty good?