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Looks like we're moving ... but to WHERE? My husband wants a commute less than an hour driveway to desk, and we need a really good school system for my child with high functioning autism. Looking to spend around 600K. Any and all suggestions are welcomed and appreciated!
Look into Chatham, NJ. Like any nice, wealthy, quaint town you will have to deal with r.e. taxes which are probably a lot higher than where you are moving from. I reside in monmouth county and commuted to wall street from here since 1997. ( not anymore though. Just closed my small Wall St. Business ). That ( monmouth county ) is to far for you. However, both my parents and my sister and her family live in Chatham which is about 10 miles west of exit 142 on the Garden State Parkway..
Very nice town. Family oriented, great schools, charming main street and it has a NJ transit stop in the borough.
With real estate the way it is now adays, even though Chatham has probably held its value more than other NJ towns, I believe you may be able to find a home within your price range. Of course, I am not sure of what size home or style you are looking for. But, there are many ways to search for listings online to see whats out there.
For a Wall Street job, you're simply not going to get an hour commute door-to-desk, not from NJ anyway (you might have a better shot from Westchester NY). But for a roughly 75 to 90 minute door-to-door commute, you have a bunch of options in NJ.
Only way to know for sure would be to come spend some time visiting different towns. With this real estate market, and prices predicted to continue falling across North NJ, you'd be best off following up your initial fact-finding mission with selecting a town to rent a house in (a lot of rental inventory to choose from). Then, you will have time to thoroughly investigate what towns you REALLY like well enough to buy a house in. As a secondary benefit, house prices will likely be lower and you'll be buying with assurance that -- even if prices continue to sink -- at least you know for certain you really like the town.
As for towns to check out, first one that comes to mind would be Millburn (direct train to NYC midtown, or to Hoboken where he can take the PATH train to World Trade Center). But FYI you're going to be looking at a roughly 75 to 90 minute door-to-desk commute to Wall St. from any "nice suburban" town in NJ. Only option for a faster commute is the trendy, NYC-like waterfront town of Hoboken, but it's not suburban.
I'm a NJ commuter to Wall st. area myself. I'd suggest your husband to take a look at Highlands - Atlantic Highlands - Rumson - Fair Haven - Middletown area of Monmouth County, commuting via the Seastreak ferry. I only recently moved to NJ (2 months ago), so am probably not qualified to give you advice on how nice the towns are, but can tell you that the commute is good. The ferry ride itself is ~45 minutes, and it's a 5 minute walk from Pier 11 to the office (if the office is on Wall st.). He'd have to figure out how far he wants to be from NJ side ferry terminals. If your home's going to be in Highlands or AH, I'd say 15 minutes. That would be 65-70 minute commute, with no traffic and comfy seat. Note that the ferry fare's rather expensive - could be 2 ~2.5 times the train.
South Orange could be an hour commute. Train is approx. 30 minutes, so as long as the job is a half hour from Penn St.
I looked at house in South Orange myself last weekend. Nice town, beautiful archtechture (1920/ 30's if you like that) and a pretty nice/ quaint downtown area. For full disclosure... my wife and I are hesitant as it is somewhat surrounded by less that savory (in our opinion) towns/ neighborhoods.
Anyway, just another option for you to consider as per the great commute it offers.
... yeah, but would you really want a house where the train picks you up from your driveway ?
For real. The only people who talk about "an hour commute" to Wall Street are people who don't do it.
Trains from South Orange are roughly about 30 minutes to midtown NYC (more like 33 minutes on average, but whatever). It's roughly another 30 minutes to commute to an office on Wall Street.
That still leaves out (a) time it takes to get TO the train station in the morning (10 minutes if you're lucky, more like 15 from the time you leave the house) plus (b) leaving yourself some cushion for early trains and (c) inevitable delays (there is one -- count 'em! -- one track going into Manhattan for all of NJ Transit and AMTRAK ... one thing goes wrong and the whole system falls apart ... which it does on a regular basis), I'd say it's normal to arrive 5 to 10 minutes late into NY Penn Station on a regular basis.
Bottom line, you're looking at 75 minutes door-to-door minimum commute from NJ to Wall St.
Bottom line, you're looking at 75 minutes door-to-door minimum commute from NJ to Wall St.
Not if you live in say Port Imperial in which case it's about 40 minutes door to door to Wall St. Of course the Ferry is expensive too - my wife's commute to wall street was actually faster from there then it was from midtown Manhattan but it cost 4 times as much so I guess taxiing every day in Manhattan wouldn't have cost much more and would have been much faster...
And you get a great school district to boot. OK so maybe not so much that last bit...
For real. The only people who talk about "an hour commute" to Wall Street are people who don't do it.
Trains from South Orange are roughly about 30 minutes to midtown NYC (more like 33 minutes on average, but whatever). It's roughly another 30 minutes to commute to an office on Wall Street.
That still leaves out (a) time it takes to get TO the train station in the morning (10 minutes if you're lucky, more like 15 from the time you leave the house) plus (b) leaving yourself some cushion for early trains and (c) inevitable delays (there is one -- count 'em! -- one track going into Manhattan for all of NJ Transit and AMTRAK ... one thing goes wrong and the whole system falls apart ... which it does on a regular basis), I'd say it's normal to arrive 5 to 10 minutes late into NY Penn Station on a regular basis.
Bottom line, you're looking at 75 minutes door-to-door minimum commute from NJ to Wall St.
Absolutely true. I recently moved from Midland Park, next to Ridgewood. It's about 30 miles west of Manhattan. Door-to-door commute to the WTC (and one block away since 2001) was an hour and 20 minutes if all went well. Since July I'm in Hawthorne. Commute's the same. A few miles closer to Manhattan, but a slightly slower train ride.
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