Thinking about purchasing a home in NJ (Passaic, Fort Lee: best neighborhoods, for sale)

[Babby1980]

Hi My family and I are currently thinking about purchasing a home in NJ. I currently work in Downtown Brooklyn and my husband works in Lower Manhattan.

Below please see the list of things that matter to us the most when deciding on where to purchase.

Safe neighborhood
Great Schools and Daycare (We have a 2 year old)
1hr commute to Lower Manhattan
Our Budget is 285K-325K

Can anyone recommend any areas in NJ that we should look into?


All comments are appreciated. I thank you in advance for your comments.

[slope95]

Originally Posted by Babby1980

Hi My family and I are currently thinking about purchasing a home in NJ. I currently work in Downtown Brooklyn and my husband works in Lower Manhattan.

Below please see the list of things that matter to us the most when deciding on where to purchase.

Safe neighborhood
Great Schools and Daycare (We have a 2 year old)
1hr commute to Lower Manhattan
Our Budget is 285K-325K

Can anyone recommend any areas in NJ that we should look into?


All comments are appreciated. I thank you in advance for your comments.

welcome to nj. your budget is a little tough, considering that you want great schools and low costs for homes, plus a 1 hour commute to lower manhattan.

there are some options in maplewood, though property taxes are high, and many of those homes are not in the best neighborhoods. Maplewood Real Estate & Maplewood Homes For Sale — Trulia.com has some options. maplewood and so orange share schools, which are not bad, but are far from excellent. however some like 41 Marie Place, Maplewood NJ - Trulia could be good, because you could take the 25 bus, which stops right at the corner for 29 min to newark penn station, then transfer to a path train which is 20 min and goes to wtc.

you can look at montclair, which has options in your range and good schools. you could take train to nyc and subway to lower manhattan.

there are a few options in cranford, which has good schools, great downtown, and train to nwk penn, where you can transfer to path to wtc or njt to nyp.

there is a little in new providence, which has great schools, like 184 Passaic Street, New Providence NJ - Trulia and 214 Livingston Avenue, New Providence NJ - Trulia.

[babo111]

Originally Posted by Babby1980

Hi My family and I are currently thinking about purchasing a home in NJ. I currently work in Downtown Brooklyn and my husband works in Lower Manhattan.

Below please see the list of things that matter to us the most when deciding on where to purchase.

Safe neighborhood
Great Schools and Daycare (We have a 2 year old)
1hr commute to Lower Manhattan
Our Budget is 285K-325K

Can anyone recommend any areas in NJ that we should look into?


All comments are appreciated. I thank you in advance for your comments.

I'm going to second that your budget is low. Even if you guys are OK with 2bedrooms in older building. You won't get commute time. For example, you have some towns in Bergen county like Fort Lee, Leonia which has good public schools and have 2bedroom around 325k but its definitely more than 1 hour to lower Manhattan.

Bottom-line is that something needs to give. Whether its your commute need, accepting crpapyier school district, budget going up, perhaps considering renting longer so you can save bigger downpayment, etc. Also three items to note.

- Property tax in NJ is like Long Island, a broad rule of thumb you can apply is 2-2.5% of property value being annual tax. Make sure you check and see how much tax is because sometimes, its a shocker to folks.

- Best way to Lower Manhattan is by living in towns with Path access, light rail/Path combo, or right by the tunnel. However many of these towns are expensive and some do not have good public school district.

- NJ is not cheap as some people in NY may think. If you own a property, its not much different in terms of finances if you owned a home in Long Island, Westchester, etc. because of high property taxes. And if you dont live in NYC, you don't pay NYC income tax so thats same as well if you lived in say Long Island vs. NJ. Difference comes from other things Like awesome outdoor NJ has like parks, marinas, etc.

Edit: I lived in Downtown Brooklyn and worked in Dumbo before so I know what you are thinking when you said Lower Manhattan. I'm assuming you were going to hop on MTA from Lower Manhattan and get to Downtown Brooklyn. Commuting from NJ to Brooklyn is really a biatch. Best is taking Path and taking MTA to DoBro or Dumbo and walking it wherever. My former coworker took bus from Palisades Park and took MTA from Port Authority...his commute was pretty rough. Tunnels get jammed up time to time...actually often so it's going to be quite rough commute. So if finding a new job is an option. You definitley want to look into that or prepare for rough commute.