Moving with young kids to Northern Jersey--Help! (Newark, West Orange: rentals, how much)

[ally_acres]

Looking for a place that's an easy commute to both New York and Newark. In addition to a good commute, the most important things are great public schools and a warm community feel (and pretty old houses would be nice too). Thoughts? We're thinking we may rent for a year while getting a sense of the area, but could also buy.

[labcjo]

Check out the suburban Essex County towns (Essex is the county Newark is in) - all have midtown direct trains, are a short train ride or drive away from Newark, have good schools, and maybe all besides Millburn are filled with great old, historic home stock:

Glen Ridge
Montclair
South Orange
Maplewood
Millburn

[Lambados]

Fair Lawn
Glen Rock
Nutley
New Milford
River Edge
Oradell
Paramus

[CanonGrace]

It would be helpful to have a price range..... Millburn/Short Hills is perfect. Top ranked schools (though almost TOO competitive), variety of price points, rentals etc. All five elementary schools are solid and all feed into the middle school. The high school is top notch. More than half the students go to well known universities. (I saw the stat--cant remember). Newark is 15 min away by car and NYC is 35 min-50min by train.

Maplewood-another solid option with better price points and schools not as well ranked.

Summit--same stats as above, the schools are VERY good, but it's also $$$ and the schools not as good as Millburn's (though that's like comparing Miss Universe to Miss World. Who cares.)

I would also look at some on the Morris Direct train line--Chathan, Madison, Morristown, Denville. Out of those, I think Denville is a great value--all price points, a bit farther out but still on the train line, nice schools, cute vibe.\

No one has mentioned Westfield--that's a great option but there is no train direct to NYC. Livingston too. If you can put up with the inconvenience of finding an alternative commute, the locations are great and the schools are fantastic with all kinds of price points and entry levels.

Up north, Tenafly, Glen Ridge, Fair Lawn, West Orange, Cedar Grove, Parsippany,

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by ally_acres

Looking for a place that's an easy commute to both New York and Newark. In addition to a good commute, the most important things are great public schools and a warm community feel (and pretty old houses would be nice too). Thoughts? We're thinking we may rent for a year while getting a sense of the area, but could also buy.

For more help, provide the information requested in the "Sticky" at the top of the page as to budget, etc.

[ally_acres]

Thanks so much for the info. To further the conversation based on the sticky, we are looking for 3-4 bedrooms and probably in the $800k-$1M range. Things that are important in addition what I mentioned above are a town with history, but also has some sort of downtown/business district with interesting local businesses (but don't care about nightlife), great public schools are very important, would also like to be not too far away from a Target-eqse type of place and a Whole Foods-type place (certainly don't need to be in the same town, just not too too far). I'd like a good sense of community, since we're leaving our home of many years/all of our friends and would like a welcoming community for the family. As I mentioned above, a not miserable commute to Newark and Manhattan are also key.

[ally_acres]

And if anyone can give insight specifically into Chatham, I would appreciate that. I'm wary of a reputation of a snob factor, but how real is that (in comparison to other nearby towns). I know the Short Hills/Millburn schools are considered slightly better, but how much better really. Thanks.