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I'm looking for advice/recommendations on where to live in NJ. I'm contemplating taking a job in Flemington.
- Reason: Moving to be closer to significant other in Brooklyn (I am currently in the Midwest (MI)).
- Budget: If there are strong advantages to a certain location, I could go up to $1600-1700 on base rent, but ideally I'd like to stay in the $1200-1500 range, or as cheap as possible without compromising on safety.
- Living by myself so fine with a studio, or 1bedroom.
Important items to me:
- Being able to get to Brooklyn easily 2-3 weekends a month, but also have a decent commute into work
- Interested in an area where there are a good number of young professionals to make friends, and have things to do (exploring restaurants, go shopping, do happy hour..)
- Safety - I am used to being aware of my surroundings since I do live near a college town (Ann Arbor), but still, I am a female in my mid 20s
- Easy parking where I live, just since I will have my car with me and be using it to commute to work. Is garage parking fairly typical to get with renting an apartment? Work hours would be ~7/7:30AM-4PM daily.
- Just doing some preliminary research, according to google maps, commute into Flemington from:
* Somerville: 18-35 mins
* Morristown: 30-45 mins
* Somerset (Franklin Township): 30-50 mins
Is heading into Flemington in the AM / leaving it in the PM against traffic (so is it actually is not as bad and is more on the low end of that time scale)? Or realistically will it actually be a lot more in commute time for those cities (1hr+?)
Somerville seems to be the closest from a daily commute perspective, but am wondering how much of a disadvantage it is to go to NY from there - looks like it doesn't have a direct line in whereas the others do. How bad is transferring from the Raritan Valley line compared to if I should just uber (or drive if there is lots of parking) to the Northeast Corridor stop in NB or to the one in Morristown and then head in to NY? Do these public transit options tend to get delayed/have issues (should I just drive to NY on the weekends I want to see the significant other)?
Are there other cities I may be missing, but should be considering? What would be the best recommendation?
Thanks for the help!
Last edited by saen11203; 03-13-2019 at 06:02 PM..
Only advantage to Morristown is the town itself. Lots of bars/restaurants and younger people. I believe Sommerville may offer places to meet people your own age, just not as many. I'll leave that to the people who live closer to Sommerville.
Having lived the next town over from Morristown, I can tell you that the trip between Morristown and Sommerville will be going opposite of traffic and take about 15 minutes on Route 287. From there you have to get off the interstate and get on a road with some traffic lights. It will take you another 20 minutes on Route 202. I use to go to the outlets in Flemington and planned for a 40 minute trip.
As to your visit to Brooklyn. You may want to consider driving from Somerville or Morristown. You can go down Route 78 over the Outer Bridge through Staten Island over the Verrazano Narrows bridge and be in Brooklyn. To do this by mass transit, you'd have to get into NY, then take a subway or bus to you location in Brooklyn.
I also lived in Long Island before moving to NJ and there is no easy way to get from NJ to Brooklyn/LI on mass transit.
I appreciate the help! I will see what people in Somerville hopefully respond with to determine if the extra commute time is worth living in Morristown for (I wonder if a good number of people in Somerville end up just going to Morristown on the weekends to hang out/explore?) How is the parking/safety in Morristown? Is it fairly easy to find street parking, or should I be looking at apartment options that have a guaranteed parking spot included?
I just reviewed google map and public transit from Morristown to Brooklyn was estimated at 2 hours vs. driving is 1 hour 15 mins, which is fairly similar to each other from my perspective. I think my main reservations with driving is trying to park my car in Brooklyn and, to a lesser degree, I'm a bit intimidated by the concept of aggressive NY drivers (I learned to drive in suburbia - I'm sure I could work on this, but going into this whole process, I'm figuring out all the options so want to scope out the public transit thoroughly as well haha).
Well, if you just trying to get into Brooklyn once a week, I guess the commuting time there isn't your top priority, right? It is more important that your daily commute is manageable.
Flemington / Raritan township area is a great place to live, but I'll be honest with you, there isn't much there for a young 20 something as far as going out, meeting people, etc. Somerville is better; and does have more young professionals, but still has a relatively small downtown area. Commute down 202 is manageable, as you will be going opposite traffic. Morristown is best, but of course has the longest commute to Flemington.
You might even consider Princeton; as far as meeting people your age, id say Somerville < Princeton = Morristown, and Princeton is ~ 1 hour from NYC by rail. The commute from Princeton to Flemington is probably not much worse than Somerville, and better than Morristown.
I appreciate the help! I will see what people in Somerville hopefully respond with to determine if the extra commute time is worth living in Morristown for (I wonder if a good number of people in Somerville end up just going to Morristown on the weekends to hang out/explore?) How is the parking/safety in Morristown? Is it fairly easy to find street parking, or should I be looking at apartment options that have a guaranteed parking spot included?
I just reviewed google map and public transit from Morristown to Brooklyn was estimated at 2 hours vs. driving is 1 hour 15 mins, which is fairly similar to each other from my perspective. I think my main reservations with driving is trying to park my car in Brooklyn and, to a lesser degree, I'm a bit intimidated by the concept of aggressive NY drivers (I learned to drive in suburbia - I'm sure I could work on this, but going into this whole process, I'm figuring out all the options so want to scope out the public transit thoroughly as well haha).
I wonder if you would be going to Brooklyn at off peak times? Even in plentiful rush hour options for public transit I think 2 hours is optimistic. (maybe I am off though- depending on where in Bklyn). and 1 hour 15 minutes driving is reasonable but I don't think you can rely on typical.
I wonder if anyone else shares my opinion or maybe I am just out of it.
Hadn't thought of Princeton, but that would be good to check out. Had a friend who live in Princeton years ago. She was single in her 30s and liked it quite a bit.
As to your Morristown question about safe and parking. After hours, I would park in an open lot if possible and the best areas or either on South Street or south of South Street. There is a parking garage on Speedwell that services the hotel and movie theater and I would not park there at night if I was alone. Daytime was fine.
There are some sketchy areas in Morristown north of the actual town along Speedwell. I'd look for a place to the east, west or south of town.
@Boo_Urns - makes sense, prioritizing commute is better than travel into Brooklyn. Thank you!
Is there an area within Princeton that is fairly safe, but have rent prices within my budget (<$1700)? Or should I be concentrating on just looking in areas right in downtown (by that Nassau street area)? I just glanced at apartments.com and the listings are in the $2.5K+ range which I don't think I can afford, unless it's easy to find a roommate in that area I can pair up with. Or maybe it is possible to find someplace downtown in my budget, but I'm not using the right resource to find it..
@Mayvenne - that is a fair point - significant other is close to Williamsburg. I'd probably be looking at doing a Friday late afternoon (leave after work, so 4-5pm) - Sunday late evening (leave NY sometime after 8pm) timeframe for weekend trips. I would think the Friday afternoon one will be quite rough. Hopefully not so much Sunday night.
@macrodome2 - There is a View Point Terrace apartment just south of the Morris county courthouse that is quite cheap that seems like it would fit the bill it looks like. In terms of price, Princeton seems too expensive - or did you mean I should look at living in areas on the outskirts of Princeton (ie. "Pennington", "Mt Rose", "Hopewell" on the map)?
@Boo_Urns - makes sense, prioritizing commute is better than travel into Brooklyn. Thank you!
Is there an area within Princeton that is fairly safe, but have rent prices within my budget (<$1700)? Or should I be concentrating on just looking in areas right in downtown (by that Nassau street area)? I just glanced at apartments.com and the listings are in the $2.5K+ range which I don't think I can afford, unless it's easy to find a roommate in that area I can pair up with. Or maybe it is possible to find someplace downtown in my budget, but I'm not using the right resource to find it..
@Mayvenne - that is a fair point - significant other is close to Williamsburg. I'd probably be looking at doing a Friday late afternoon (leave after work, so 4-5pm) - Sunday late evening (leave NY sometime after 8pm) timeframe for weekend trips. I would think the Friday afternoon one will be quite rough. Hopefully not so much Sunday night.
@macrodome2 - There is a View Point Terrace apartment just south of the Morris county courthouse that is quite cheap that seems like it would fit the bill it looks like. In terms of price, Princeton seems too expensive - or did you mean I should look at living in areas on the outskirts of Princeton (ie. "Pennington", "Mt Rose", "Hopewell" on the map)?
I live in the general area of Somerville/Bridgewater/Flemington, and used to work in Morristown for 10 years. So, my commute was brutal on 287 as it wasn't the opposite direction for me with my 8-4:30pm hours. Now I work near Trenton so often pass thorough Pennington/Hopewell/outer skirts of Princeton via back roads, and wouldn't recommend any of those towns for you to live. Hopewell/Pennington is wealthy suburbia area with not much to offer for 20 something person, but beautiful area to ultimately settle down with a family though.
Your budget of 1500-1700 in Princeton may be bit hard to pull it off, unless you live in surrounding towns of Windsor/Mongotomery (suburbia area) or pairing up with a roommate to live around Princeton proper (I think that is your best bet since you'll be spending most of your weekends in Brooklyn?) so it's good to have a reliable roommate.
I love Somerville, it's fun area for my husband and I to escape for our weekly date nights, yet also good fun options of eateries to take my kids as well. Just not sure about living in Somerville though full-time, you've to check it out. Some people love it, and some others still find it suburbia for them.
Morristown is another good option as it is bit bigger than Somerville, imo. It has a nice green square park to hang out that is really nice for spring/summer/fall days/evenings, tons of fun restaurants, coffee shops, etc. it's bit cheaper than Princeton, but the commute will get old for you after some time esepcially when you're already traveling all way to Brooklyn most weekends too.
best of luck!
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