Garwood? Fanwood? (Edison, Westfield, Scotch Plains: renting, houses, neighborhoods)

[ktmac]

Looking to buy our first home. Love Westfield but looking to spend under 550k. All we need is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths (ideally), for our starter house, but I want some charm, and I feel like we'll have to get lucky to find just the right house in Westfield. I know Cranford is a good bet, but what about Garwood or Fanwood? Any other neighboring towns we can consider? Mountainside, perhaps? Scotch Plains seems ok... I'm not sold on it though.

No kids yet - so we've got some time before school systems.
We want to be near a fun downtown with plenty to do - and husband commutes to Edison, and once a week to Manhattan. ANd we want to be close enough to Westfield so we can hopefully move there when we're ready for house number 2. We're lucky in that we're renting right now so the only "rush" we are in is to take advantage of market and interest rates.

Thanks!

[mczabe]

I think Fanwood, Scotch Plains, and Mountainside are all great towns - plenty of very charming neighborhoods in all of them.

I'm not a huge fan of Garwood, but I'm also not familiar with areas of Garwood away from the North/South Ave. corridor so when I think of Garwood, that unappealing strip of town is what comes to my mind.

[plume12]

We recently moved to Fanwood. Our first choice was Westfield but we did not have much luck. We were placing bids on houses ranging from 450,000 to about 600,000. Out of the 4 homes we bid on we didn't get any of them. Our Realtor told us about Fanwood and fell in love with a house that was 2 blocks from the train station. It's a very friendly town and we were actually shocked on how friendly everyone was. The schools are also great, I know you're not thinking about that but it does help. And it's only 1.7 miles from Westfield. It's very close. I also heard great things about Mountainside and Watchung.
Good Luck and happy hunting

[Thosepeskyfacts]

What about Metuchen? It has a great downtown, is right next door to Edison and you're still close to Westfield.

[novillero]

Originally Posted by Thosepeskyfacts

What about Metuchen? It has a great downtown, is right next door to Edison and you're still close to Westfield.

skip Garwood, go with the other towns. I'm particular to Cranford. I think there are some good buys there in your price range.