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How many kids got into Ivy League schools / vs went nowhere fast? Your statement is pointless without hard numbers.
I stated facts. Where are your numbers to support the "crappy" sentiment? Do you honestly have any first-hand familiarity with the WO school district to make such a generalization? I know many parents that have kids at all levels in the WO school district and they are happy with the education their children are receiving.
i purchased a house in WO for $445,000. I looked at houses in surrounding cities (verona, south orange, etc) that had slightly lower taxes, maybe $3k less, but were listed anywhere from $50-$100k more.
The irony in your post, of course, is that your "slight difference" of $3,000 is probably about the average property tax bill for the entire year in 90% of the country.
I stated facts. Where are your numbers to support the "crappy" sentiment? Do you honestly have any first-hand familiarity with the WO school district to make such a generalization? I know many parents that have kids at all levels in the WO school district and they are happy with the education their children are receiving.
You did not post any substantial facts. A few kids getting into an ivy league school does not make a good school district.
I have plenty of numbers that lead me to the conclusion that WO schools aren't that great. 68% proficiency rate in Math in 11th grade....terrible. Below the state average in fact. SAT results that are below the state average also. In the class of 2009 66% of kids are going to a 4 year college. Compare that to, say, Millburn where the number is 92%.
Is there something I am missing? I am happy to be persuaded that WO schools are terrific but you are going to have to do it with more that a quote from a town newsletter and indignation.
Yeah. In case you missed it -- Millburn is a more affluent town than West Orange. I'm not up to checking the census numbers now, but it wouldn't surprise me if the 68th wealth or income or whatever percentile is comparable to the 92nd in Millburn.
In other words, what evidence do you have that these scores are a result of a better school system as opposed to a bunch of students that happen to be smarter on average ?
Quote:
SAT results that are below the state average also.
Do you have anything more detailed than the average score ?
Most of the numbers that you have reflect the performance of the weaker students in that district. But WO encompasses a fairly broad slice of the socioeconomic spectrum, so those lower scores come from a very different demographic to your typical Millburn student.
If you were to look at the performance of the top 10% of West Orange students, you might get a very different picture.
Last edited by elflord1973; 08-04-2010 at 08:41 PM..
How many kids got into Ivy League schools / vs went nowhere fast? Your statement is pointless without hard numbers.
just to set the record straight, who gives a crap about ivy league schools? we don't all fall for that crap. I didn't go to an ivy, and i'm doing quite alright.
as for DINKYs, i'm perfectly happy with living in west orange, and i have a kid on the way. the schools are good enough - will i stay here forever? i don't know. but the schools don't have to be perfect, they just need to be good. unless you're a parent that doesn't think you need to be involved in your kids' lives - then move to the best school district in the state and let the teachers raise your kids for you...
The irony in your post, of course, is that your "slight difference" of $3,000 is probably about the average property tax bill for the entire year in 90% of the country.
right, but 90% of the country doesn't have access to the jobs and income that exist when you live within 1-2 hours of NYC do they? so that's all fine and dandy, but why not compare it to something relevant?
listen - i struggle to wrap my head around the taxes in NJ. I grew up in northeast PA, i have siblings that live outside philly and in wilmington. my parents taxes in PA, in a pretty horrible school district, are around $3,000 for school taxes - property taxes work differently there. my sister in king of prussia has taxes under $2,000, as does my BIL in wilmington. they're all doing fine, but if i moved, i wouldn't make the same salary. i'd have lower costs, and i'd have some higher costs.
no one really has the public transportation system we do. few have the highways we do (NJTP and GSP). the public schools in NJ, from what i've seen so far, are much better than most of the public schools in PA. as far as city services, and the county taxes - well, i don't know why those are so much higher than PA. PA's cities and counties are structured differently for 1, but i don't know how differently.
listed, not sold. 2 very different animals, especially in this market. lots of people are still under the delusion it's 2005.
eta: a $75k difference in price yields about $400 more a month, offset by $250 in taxes if what you say about the houses are true. and that's just today. your P&I will remain the same but your taxes will go up. i just have a hard time believing similar homes in verona and SO cost that much more, unless we're talking about a crappy section of WO compared to a great section of SO and Verona.
you can believe it or not, but i'm telling you what i witnessed myself, as a home buyer in march, 2010. those other houses have since sold. prices in the surrounding towns at the homes i compared to would have to drop nearly 10% to make up for the difference ($500k dropped 10% would be $450k, 550k dropped 10% would be $495k). And, many of the comparably priced homes had 1 less bedroom than what i got in WO and a half bathroom less. it is what it is.
it's simple math really. people set out to buy a house based on the monthly payment they can afford. if the monthly payment they can afford is $3,000, and the taxes are $12,000/yr - then the house can't be financed for more than approx $400k (a touch less i believe, at current avg i-rates). if you drop the taxes by $3,600, that frees up another $300/month that the person can afford, meaning they'll be able to finance closer to $450,000.
it might be a stupid way to shop for a home, but it's the way most americans, especially in these areas of NJ, have been shopping. so if you look at the avg incomes in the area, you can deduce for yourself what the avg payments can be. the taxes may go up, they may not (more likely will) - but it's not likely they will get away with raising them at the rates that they have gotten away with. hopefully the people who finally woke up stay involved and alert, and don't let the local governments take advantage of them again in the near future.
I've done the math on this, and as far as I can tell, the market is fairly myopic in that it is driven by the monthly payments you'd pay today. I concluded for example that 470k in mountainside is cheaper than 386k in WO.
So in the high price/low tax town, you have about the same monthly payment as you do in the low price/high tax town, but your payments will go up at a faster rate in the high tax town (because a greater proportion of your payment goes to the part of your bill that is increasing). A basic rule of thumb is that 1000/year increase in property tax takes about 20k from the sticker price you can afford. If you save 5k in taxes, you can increase your budget by 100k and have the same monthly payment.
yeah elflord, this sounds about right. but, you're making the assumption that taxes will certainly go up. while it's difficult for taxes to go down, i believe that we're entering a unique period. for one thing, reassessments are being performed, which will bring the playing field in west orange a bit more level. those who have gotten away with paying less because their assessment is from 1984 will not be getting away with it anymore. those that are paying more will come down a bit also.
while your mountainside example may ring true, you've not added other variables - what's the commute time? what's the difference in transit costs (it's farther from the city so i'm assuming a ticket is a few bucks more)? maybe this doesn't make up for the difference in property taxes, but my times is valuable also, so if i want to be able to commute to the city in 15-20 minutes less each day, maybe that's worth an extra $2,500 in taxes per year. plus, the services west orange provides are fairly good as far as trash, recycling, street cleaning, clearing, etc.
You did not post any substantial facts. A few kids getting into an ivy league school does not make a good school district.
I have plenty of numbers that lead me to the conclusion that WO schools aren't that great. 68% proficiency rate in Math in 11th grade....terrible. Below the state average in fact. SAT results that are below the state average also. In the class of 2009 66% of kids are going to a 4 year college. Compare that to, say, Millburn where the number is 92%.
Is there something I am missing? I am happy to be persuaded that WO schools are terrific but you are going to have to do it with more that a quote from a town newsletter and indignation.
"The school was the 114th-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 316 schools statewide, in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2008 cover story on the state's Top Public High Schools. The school was ranked 98th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state."
now, millburn high school is far better. in 2008, the magazine named them #1. they have a high percentage going to 4 yr schools. but, if you want to use ivy's as the measure, 29 of 315 went to ivy's. i'll work on the west orange stats for you soon. but the point isn't that west orange is the best school in the state, it's that it's a good school.
no one really has the public transportation system we do. few have the highways we do (NJTP and GSP). the public schools in NJ, from what i've seen so far, are much better than most of the public schools in PA. as far as city services, and the county taxes - well, i don't know why those are so much higher than PA. PA's cities and counties are structured differently for 1, but i don't know how differently.
I just moved to PA. The Lower Merion, Haverford and Radnor school districts stack up pretty well against the better schools in NJ. There are parts of Lower Merion and Haverford school district that the middle class can still afford.
My commute here is way shorter than I'd have if I kept my Manhattan job. So it's true that I don't have the same transportation options for my work commute, but I hardly envy it. You need a good mass transit system around NY to move that many people in and out of the city in rush hour.
For going out to the city, I can actually drive there or take the train. I wouldn't drive into Manhattan, it's just not worth the hassle.
For what it's worth, I pretty much agree at least conceptually with your analysis on the way house prices work -- buyers are very myopic, so the market is driven primarily by affordability of the initial monthly payments. Neither the buyers nor the banks are terribly interested in the long term financial implications. If you had a balloon loan for a million, where the monthly payments for the first year were 500/month, everyone would buy a one million dollar house, then a year later the NY Times would write whiny articles about people losing their homes.
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