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My husband and I will be relocating to the East Coast in Jan '08 from Brisbane, Australia due to a promotion within the company he works for, work to be based in Mahwah.
We are interested in finding an area to live which is within about 20-30 minutes drive/commute to Mahwah, but also less than an hour away from NYC, as neither of us have been to the East Coast before and will be keen to explore the attractions when we can.
The contract is initially for a 2 year period possibly extending to 4 yrs, so we will be looking to rent, either apartment or townhouse style I'm thinking.
No kids, so schools arent an issue, and somewhere a little up-market with decent restaurants/theatres etc nearby would be great.
The price range we are able to look into would be anywhere in the $2500-3500 per month range, inclusive of amenities if possible.
We are both in the mid-30's age bracket, and pretty laid back, we like to eat out, and have a few drinks and a boogie at a club occasionally, so that's basically the rundown on the type of area I'm after, if there is anywhere in NJ along those lines, I'd love to hear about them!
Could anyone offer some recommendations of where we should be looking to settle in for a few years?
Many thanks, in advance.
J & L.
From Down Under.
Last edited by FromDownUnder; 11-20-2007 at 12:43 AM..
Reason: Wording.
Hoboken or jersey city would fit your lifestyle best. Tons of restaurants, pubs, culture, and close to NYC. However, the commute to mahwah would be closer to an hour rather than 20-30mins
It sounds like Hoboken would be nice for your lifestyle I agree. Hoboken is a bustling town right across the hudson river from NYC with a LOT of 20 and 30 somethings and boasts the most bars per square mile for any town in NJ or the USA or something like that. The commute to Mahwah is not my favorite . From Hoboken to Mahwah is a bit of a hike.
At the same time maybe you would like something like Ridgewood. Ridgewood is much more laid back than Hoboken but has a cute down town with bars and restaurants and coffee shops. Definitely NO clubs. I would say this is more of a family town vs Hoboken being a young town. The commute to Mahwah will be much shorter, and you can still go to Hoboken and NYC when you want to.
I've just been using Google maps as an indication of travel time, I guess it's not very accurate. (It shows White Plains as 35 mins travel time)
I'll definitely look more closely into those areas suggested.
This is the kind of stuff you can only find out from real people, so thank you so much for taking the time to respond.
Note: The nightlife side is actually not an issue. Truth be told, we usually end up going for a nice restaurant and a good bottle of wine over a club anyway. I tend to forget that we're getting old and boring these days!
Last edited by FromDownUnder; 11-20-2007 at 10:08 PM..
the suggestions so far are good, maybe look into Morristown as well. sort of being billed now as "hoboken west". the commute to Mahwah is a straight shot up 287. your price range is fine - you can get something very nice there. only thing is your commute will be longer than 30 min - maybe 45? (it's about 35 miles away - but once you pass Rt 80 you're against traffic).
Due to my wife's new job in Mahwah, we moved from Newport (Jersey City) to Ridgewood. If you do not mind missing the clubs, then I think that you would actually like Ridgewood.
My and I are in our early 30s and we looked at Montclair, Morristown and Ridgewood. I liked Montclair as well (Morristown not as much), but we ended up choosing Ridgewood due to the reasonably short commute (20-30 minutes) to Mahwah. It takes about 45-60 minutes to get to NYC by train.
So far, both of us like Ridgewood a lot (even though I am more of a city person) as it offers a good mix of different types of restaurants and cafes.
We pay 2350 for a 2BR apartment (the range is between 1900-2500 for a 2 BR apt; perhaps a bit more for stand-alone houses but we never looked at houses)...
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