Moving to Belleville. (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson: real estate, apartment, rent)

[Kreen]

Hi there.
Now, I know I'm a little ahead of time, but in about three years (when I'm finished my uni course) I am looking to move to Belleville and hopefully pick up a teaching position at a secondary school. I will hopefully have a buddy moving with me. We will be dramatically poor because we will be moving from Australia. Can anyone give me any information that I might find useful regarding finding a job over there before I leave Oz, cheap/temporary accomodation, and basically anything to do with completely starting a new life in Belleville?
Thanks heaps. I know it's a loaded question, I just don't have a clue where to start.

[wjcheng]

As mentioned before in this forum, the more North East toward New York City, the more expensive the real estate and living cost, and Bellville is North, so it would be less affordable for you (since you mentione you will be poor).

Rather you may consider more down South and West like GreaterArea.

None the less, since the closer to New York City, the higher pay, so if you work at Bellville area may be making more. So, ideally, you may live at more farther from New York City in New Jersey and work at New York City or Northern Jersey like Bellville, Newark, or Jersey City ...etc.

Then, you will commute with train, so towns closer to Train Station is important.

[mead]

Huh? Wjcheng, Belleville really isn't that expensive. The rents are easily within the range of a High School teacher, especially if 2 people are splitting the rent. A 2br in Belleville is probably going to set you back around $1,200 a month in Belleville. The starting salaries for most High School teachers in the area is I believe somewhere between $35,000 - $45,000 per year. If there are 2 of you doing this, it should not be a problem. Just remember to save up before you come here. In the USA you usually need at aleast 2 months rent to get an apartment (so in this case it would probably be around $2,400).

The rule that the farther North-east in NJ you go, the more expensive it gets does not always hold. There are a lot of nice blue-collar towns located between Newark and Paterson which are safe and quite reasonably priced. Belleville is considered to be one of them (but in all honestly, Belleville isn't as nice as it used to be).

Belleville is alright though. I prefer some of the surrounding towns over Bellevile. Look into Nutley, Kearny, North Arlington, Lyndhurst, and Rutherford if you will be working in Belleville. These towns are all quite close to Belleville. You will definitely need a car of some sort once you get here in order to get to your job and to move around.

I'm quite confused as to how the original poster ended up picking Belleville. Do you have relatives there? Have you visited? Why Belleville over all of the other surrounding towns.