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I recently accepted a job in the financial district beginning this summer and have begun searching for areas that will fit within our budget. I have three kids, one of whom will be in elementary school, the other two are a couple years out.
Important Criteria:
-We need at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths with at least 1000 sq. feet. and a parking space.
-Laundry in unit
-Commute to FiDi less than an hour. Ideally, limited to about 45 min.
Additionally, our budget can support about $4000/month with parking. ie, if parking is $200/mo. $3800 is the max.
Here is the real obstacle--schools. We would love our daughter to attend a good public school. We have found that many areas that meet our criteria above have poor public schools.
One area we have researched is Hoboken and would send our child to Hoboken Catholic Academy (if admitted). Unfortunately, sending our child to a private school would reduce our budget by a commensurate amount. If our annual budget is $48k and tuition is $8k, then our new annual housing budget is $40k and monthly budget becomes $3,333.
I am all ears if I have realistic expectations or if I need to compromise somewhere. Please advise on any recommendations. Good schools is my biggest priority, followed by commute time.
We would only live in this place for 1-2 years and would then purchase our own home when we are more comfortable with the area.
Lastly, I would love an opinion on the following: Secaucus, Weehawken, Bayonne with respect to public schools and commute time to financial district.
Secaucus, Weehawken, and Bayonne have fair to poor schools and are not your best bets for a commute to downtown. You might want to consider Rutherford. The schools are pretty good at the elementary level and NJ Transit Rail has service to Hoboken (15 - 20 minutes app.) with transfer to PATH for the World Trade Center (10 minutes). If you are planning to move before any of your children reach middle school age, you will be fine. This link should give you some idea of the current rental market:
". . . and Bayonne have fair to poor schools and are not your best bets for a commute to downtown."
Horrace Mann School in Bayonne gets immigrant kids from the 25% mark in the state to 65% between kindergarten and sixth grade. The community has a solid core of mulch-generational families, typically nurses, union construction and cops. Laid over that are immigrant waves, currently Indians, but just look at the list of churches and community centers to get an idea of who has been here and left behind something interesting.
My commute from 1/2 block to 34th street light rail is a reliable hour to 50th and Lex in midtown. 30 to 35 minutes to World Trade Center. I'm a lawyer who is very pleased to have moved here.
Doesn't need numbers- just knows what is bad. Doesn't need to know where to look up numbers. Isn't able to look up numbers.
And I hate auto correct. How multi becomes mulch is beyond me.
My daughter's best friend's father does million and up renovations of Manhattan residences and chooses to live here after living everywhere around New York City. For the family life. I like the brilliant immigrant parents.
Have you considered Short Hills/Millburn? GREAT schools. I think NJT line there runs to Hoboken, from there you take PATH into lower manhattan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shuaietrain
Hello all-
I recently accepted a job in the financial district beginning this summer and have begun searching for areas that will fit within our budget. I have three kids, one of whom will be in elementary school, the other two are a couple years out.
Important Criteria:
-We need at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths with at least 1000 sq. feet. and a parking space.
-Laundry in unit
-Commute to FiDi less than an hour. Ideally, limited to about 45 min.
Additionally, our budget can support about $4000/month with parking. ie, if parking is $200/mo. $3800 is the max.
Here is the real obstacle--schools. We would love our daughter to attend a good public school. We have found that many areas that meet our criteria above have poor public schools.
One area we have researched is Hoboken and would send our child to Hoboken Catholic Academy (if admitted). Unfortunately, sending our child to a private school would reduce our budget by a commensurate amount. If our annual budget is $48k and tuition is $8k, then our new annual housing budget is $40k and monthly budget becomes $3,333.
I am all ears if I have realistic expectations or if I need to compromise somewhere. Please advise on any recommendations. Good schools is my biggest priority, followed by commute time.
We would only live in this place for 1-2 years and would then purchase our own home when we are more comfortable with the area.
Lastly, I would love an opinion on the following: Secaucus, Weehawken, Bayonne with respect to public schools and commute time to financial district.
Sorry, didn't get to fully complete my reply. Most of the towns you mentioned or that people suggested don't really have good schools. If it was my child, I would look for a better school district, even if it meant a longer commute. Also, do you want to live in a nice area, or a "not so nice" area? Short Hills-Millburn has top rated schools, great restaurants, plenty of shopping. You can get a 3 bedroom townhome or apartment there for probably around $3000 a month. With 3 kids, you really need at least 1500 sf. As far as the commute, the train ride from Short Hills to Hoboken is 30 min, and then you only need to take the Path into lower manhattan. It would end up being 45-50 min depending on how long your walk is.
You will like living in Short Hills, trust me on this one.
Don't rule out northern Monmouth county, the Seastreak ferry there goes directly to Wall Street and the commute is only 40 minutes, there are some really nice towns there (red bank, rumson, etc) that you may want to investigate
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