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We are married couple and would like to buy our first time house around the end of this year. One of us is working at Madison NJ, the other is working at NYC. Our budget is around 500K. considering the easy commuting, which towns are good candidates?
Manalapan NJ is a great town, about an hour away from both and is completely FILLED with commuters from NYC, at least 60% of the population have NYC jobs so you would fit right in. Lots of shopping nearby, close to both the city and the beach. You can easily get a really nice 4BR house for your price range, even a few thousand below, most homes are probably beetween 450,000 and 550,000, you should probably target around 470-480 because of closing costs, etc, etc. There is bigger, but for a first house that would probably be plenty. Great schools too if you ever decide to have kids. Very safe too. All around quality town.
^^^^^The commute to Madison is about an hour, same as NYC, used to live in M-pan and one of my neighbors commuted to Madison and had no issues at all. The Chatham area is wayyy overpriced for what you get. Especially for a first home. Old looking homes in Chatam that anywhere else would look like well, crap can run you 650-700. Manalapan is much better priced for the $$, worth a longer commute IMHO when you have a 200x better house.
^^^^^The commute to Madison is about an hour, same as NYC, used to live in M-pan and one of my neighbors commuted to Madison and had no issues at all. The Chatham area is wayyy overpriced for what you get. Especially for a first home. Old looking homes in Chatam that anywhere else would look like well, crap can run you 650-700. Manalapan is much better priced for the $$, worth a longer commute IMHO when you have a 200x better house.
mpan to NYC is one hour DOOR TO DOOR? NO WAY. And if you don't mean door to door, that's being disingenious. And mpan to madison is about 50 miles, which means in non rush hour it could be 1 hour, but odds are they will be commuting during rush hour, and those roads are horrendous. I have a fairly long commute - 60 miles one way...generally against traffic, and I can't do it in under 70 minutes with no traffic...and that's going 80 a good portion of it.
i personally would never recommend a 50 mile commute when there are other options. it's fine that you do, but please be realistic about commute times.
Please do not go to Manalapan - the commute to Madison would be ridiculous. Not sure why that was even recommended.
Madison, Chatham, Cranford, Westfield, BH, NP are all good choices.
Have an uncle in Scotch Plains, the town between Westfield and Berkeley Heights, he works in Parsippany area and that doesn't seem to be too hectic. They love the area although my cousins I'm not sure their take on it. One isn't too happy about her high school experience at Scotch Plains-Fanwood.
I would imagine the NP means New Providence, not North Plainfield.
Why not look in Madison? Knew someone in college who was from there, drove through it once and it looked like a pretty decent area. Has a bit of a downtown as well, close to Morristown as well and close to 24 and 287 as far as getting to major highways go that seems pretty convenient.
Manalapan NJ is a great town, about an hour away from both and is completely FILLED with commuters from NYC, at least 60% of the population have NYC jobs so you would fit right in. Lots of shopping nearby, close to both the city and the beach. You can easily get a really nice 4BR house for your price range, even a few thousand below, most homes are probably beetween 450,000 and 550,000, you should probably target around 470-480 because of closing costs, etc, etc. There is bigger, but for a first house that would probably be plenty. Great schools too if you ever decide to have kids. Very safe too. All around quality town.
You're kidding, right? Why suffer from a long commute time. Spend all those hours wasted in traffic with your family instead, and buy a home near Madison.
Madison has a cool downtown and your bound to make a friend or two if you move there (especially if you join a social club). Morristown would probably be your best choice (lots of hip bars there) budget-wise though. There is some crime in M-Town, but the chances of something bad happening to you (it's more likely to happen for somebody looking for trouble if you know what I mean) are very light. If you move to Pittstown it's very quiet and you'll have a literally-next door Wal-Mart but I'm not sure you would be able to afford a house there. A word of caution: there is a snotty element in this area of New Jersey that kind of reminds me of the Hamptons in NY.
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