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I've been visiting this site rather often to see if anyone more or less was asking for what I was looking but since I haven't seen it figured I'd ask for myself lol.
I am looking to purchase a home for myself, my girlfriend and daughter(1 year old). I work in mid town manhattan (penn station and port authority are fairly close). I think after doing some research that I've got the towns narrowed down but having a bit of a hard time figuring out how the commute into the city are for those areas. My current commute is 45mins - 1 hour, so anything similar works for me, but I don't want to go over 1 hour of commute for sure. I've lived in NYC for years, know some people in NJ but don't know anything about NJ towns
We are looking for the following:
3+ Bedroom (4 bedrooms would be ideal, 3 would do just fine), 2 bathrooms, decent size kitchen and back yard(basically a comfortable living area) and at least somewhat diverse. Trying to keep the price tag under 480k. We are a young family so a low crime rate is an absolute must, I know that we are a few years away from worrying about schools and anything can change but good schools is something I'd like to see going in.
These are the ones we've found so far, but certainly need input from people that know Jersey better:
Oakland, Fair Lawn, Sayreville, Maplewood ,South Orange
The house prices seem OK but that's about all I was able to find, I have no idea what the commute to midtown would look like. Any advise would be a godsend! We are looking to be able to make the move late spring 2015 so we are pushing to have settled on a town by late December to get the process started.
South Orange and Maplewood have some of the best commutes to Midtown in the suburban part of NJ, provided you can easily get to the train station from your house. 45 minutes door-to-Penn Station is certainly doable from much of both towns. Don't know about the other towns,
These are the ones we've found so far, but certainly need input from people that know Jersey better:
Oakland, Fair Lawn, Sayreville, Maplewood ,South Orange
The house prices seem OK but that's about all I was able to find, I have no idea what the commute to midtown would look like. Any advise would be a godsend! We are looking to be able to make the move late spring 2015 so we are pushing to have settled on a town by late December to get the process started.
I don't know anything about Oakland, Fair Lawn, or Sayreville, but Maplewood and South Orange are fantastic. The Midtown Direct trains will get you to Penn Station NYC in a little more than 30 minutes. South Orange is building some mid rise condos not far from the train station and will probably have more of a hip, urban feel in a few years. I don't think Maplewood has any condo developments in the works, but I could be wrong.
Thanks very much for all the quick replies! it's good to see that we were on the right track, looks like I missed it on my original post, but any other town suggestions that fit the criteria are also welcome (we're not exactly settled on the listed towns just the ones that seem the most appealing)
Are you looking at the train maps and schedules? For example, if you're working near Penn Station, a good train line would be the Morris & Essex (http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/R0040.pdf). You'll want to skip the first half-dozen stations (Secaucus Junction, Hoboken, Newark, East Orange, Brick Church, Orange, and Highland Ave.). All the stations after that, starting with Mountain Station (in South Orange), are in good towns that fit your criteria, although Millburn, Short Hills, and Summit may be out of your price range. Then start house-hunting online and hop on the train some weekend and ride out and visit some of the towns and see how you like them. A lot of the closer-in towns have walkable downtowns around the train station. As you get further out, the commute is longer but housing prices drop (and/or the houses are on bigger lots).
Sayreville would be a nightmare commute -- at least two hours. Google Maps is your friend.
The new construction in South Orange is all apartments, not condos. But a house under 480,000 should be doable.
Thanks! I did look at Sayreville on google maps which is what put it on the backburner for us, but I figured maybe there was some express bus or train I wasnt aware of lol. Will take a look at those other places
Oakland is probably the nicest of the towns on your list,; but the commute is more than an hour.
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(we're not exactly settled on the listed towns just the ones that seem the most appealing)
