north Edison vs West Windsor vs south brunswick (Princeton, Princeton Junction: to buy, school district)
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In central jersey, I like East Brunswick, Cranbury, Monroe, South Brunswick, Robinsville, Hillsborough, Marlboro/Manalapan, Freehold/Howell in that order.
Marlboro is too elitist or as I hear and apparently has drug problem. May be anecdotal, once went to Marlboro court for traffic ticket and saw well to do white kids arguing with prosecutor about drug charges.
West Windsor, Montgomery, North Edison and upto some extent South Brunswick, asian parents are focused on academics at expense of other development areas that kids should be exposed to. Of course I won't mind buying in West Windsor but I will not pay 50% premium. North Edison is just too old and run down compared to other towns mentioned.
Montgomery for lack of convenience is my last choice.
Way to cherry pick the quickest train from Princeton Jct.
Way to not know the train schedule... The quickest train from Princeton Jct. is 52 minutes. There are 8 morning trains from Princeton Jct. to New York that take less than 60 minutes. 6 additional trains that take less than 70 minutes. How exactly was I cherrypicking?
Way to cherry pick the quickest train from Princeton Jct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest
Way to not know the train schedule... The quickest train from Princeton Jct. is 52 minutes. There are 8 morning trains from Princeton Jct. to New York that take less than 60 minutes. 6 additional trains that take less than 70 minutes. How exactly was I cherrypicking?
I wanted to follow up on this since you have been posting in these forums but have failed to respond...
For all practical purpose there is not much difference between south brunswick and N Edison. W Windsor is definitely better school district and I would choose that over other 2 if money is no concern. If it is, you will love South Brunswick. Though all 3 towns lack diversity with heavy concentration of Indians which is big negative IMHO to have well rounded kids.
Yes, these towns are overwhelmingly South Asian, with a much lower percentage of East Asian, aka chinese, japanese, etc.
West Windsor is better, with a higher average SAT score in the high school. I don't know anything about South Brunswick, but one high school in Edison still has a nice high average SAT score.
The upside is you'll have schools with motivated students and parents. The downside is you'll notice more dings on your car when you get back to your parked car, and expect lots of drivers in the left lane going below the speed limit looking clueless when they force you to pass them on the right.
Someone above mentioned the percentage of Asian population but that was in general. I believe West Windsor Plainsboro schools are more than half Asian. Read the NY Times article about how competitive the schools are. I also know from RE agents as well as people that gave done it that many families move from WW as soon as kids are out of school because of high property taxes.
As for train, from Pr Junction it is now $451 a month (prob. going up next year) and parking is additional. While the fastest trains are about 55 minutes, they are often late...and the average door to door can be much greater. Mine is 1:35 and I'm about 7 mins from the Pr Junction train station.
I am making the same North Edison (08820) vs West Windsor (08550) comparison. I work in NYC so commute is important. Other priorities are having good schools, houses with good layouts and face, and reasonable prices.
Couple of people told me that it is hard to sell a house in N Edison. Their logic was that N Edison is predominantly indian community now, so the non-indians are hesitant in buying which means your buyer's pool is mostly only indians, i.e. you lose majority of the buyers. This puts a downward force on house prices and houses take longer to sell as well. How true is this? (I am myself an indian so the indinization doesn't bother me per se, but I am concerned about how easy is it to sell 5-10 years down the line, and how much capital appreciation am I sacrificing...).
I see West Windsor is less indianized yet compared to N Edison, but is indianization still proceeding with force? Will this mean West Windsor will see a more of a downward force on house prices going forward compared to N Edison (which is probably already close to saturation so not much more to go from here?).
What other differences in perception or reality is there between N Edison and West Windsor - apart from the commute time difference of about 20 minutes? I noticed that West Windsor houses generally have better layouts and look prettier - not sure why North Edison has less of good-looking houses...
And, elementary-mid-high schools are 10-10-10 in N Edison and 10-9-9 in W Windsor, although SAT scores in W Windsor are higher, not sure why... Any more insights and differences in schools?
Also, what is the difference between West Windsor and Princeton Junction? Anything that could be practically bothersome? Thanks in advance for your input.
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