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My husband wants Oakland I'm leaning more towards GR. We have 3 small kids and not a huge budget. In oakland we are more in the middle as in GR our budget is more with the lower priced houses. I hear great things about the town if GR and like that it is smaller and has a walkable down town. I know we would have more options in Oakland because there are more homes in our price range. With that being said my biggest concern is feeling like the poor people in town in GR. any thoughts?! I am really torn. I have the feeling GR is more keeping up with the jones than Oakland would be. Thanks!
You're in a tough spot because from my perspective, the reputation of those 2 towns are somewhat far apart. Not to say that Oakland isn't a good town but I've noticed a lot of areas in Oakland where the homeowners could careless about their properties (to put it nicely).
I never really saw Glen Rock's appeal either in the past 25 some odd years I've lived in this area but truth be told, homes in GR have a greater likelihood of retaining their property values, have excellent schools and is attractive to those commuting via train to NYC. Oakland feeds into Ramapo High School so they do have that going for them. You should keep in mind that both towns have above average property taxes (what town doesn't... I live in Wyckoff which has comparatively lower property taxes at a given price point than those 2 towns).
I totally get your concern regarding the "keeping up with the Jones's" but it's not like you're thinking about buying a $400k - $500k house in Franklin Lakes where homes average in the $1M+. GR's average home price is in the mid $500k range. I don't know what your budget is but there are plenty of modest homes and down to earth folks in GR where I think you'd be able to make it work and fit nicely into the community. If you're going to pay high taxes in either of these 2 towns, you mind as well get most out of your $ and pick the one with better schools especially with 3 kids.
One last thing, if you do decide on Oakland, stay far away from the flood prone areas.
Last edited by Ivan Putski; 06-10-2013 at 12:49 PM..
How about Fair Lawn? School system is quite good and you can probably stretch your home budget a bit further. Property taxes I think are also slightly lower than Glen Rock.
You're right, there is a lot of $ in this town and the majority are upper middle class/affluent families. Maybe it's because we don't have kids yet but I definitely don't feel the "keeping up with the Jones's" factor (yet). We were in a 5 way bidding war with our house back in 8/2012 and this was before everything took off... We we're looking in the low $600k range and got lucky with our house which has a fairly decent amount of property (about 3/4 acres).
We only considered Allendale and Wyckoff when we were searching for our house. As I mentioned in my previous post, Glen Rock was never a consideration for me. I can't put my finger on it but I've never been a fan of that town. I'm sure it's a great town and has its own merits (and excellent ones at that) but when you grow up in the area, you just can't shed certain views of town "X" and town "Y" and that's what I have with GR. As for Allendale, there was nothing in our price range at the time but we really preferred Wyckoff to begin with so that was a non-issue.
It's been almost a year here and we absolutely love it. Good luck with your search.
Glen Rock is more upscale and affluent. It has better commuting options to NYC. It has a small village center whereas Oakland is more "strip mall".
Glen Rock is middle to upper middle class.
Oakland is working class to middle class.
There's nothing wrong with Oakland. But its not Glen Rock.
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