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- may hold an annual River Carnival yearly if things go the mayor's way. This used to be an annual celebration in the early 1900s.
Cranford Talk • View topic - The New Cranford River Carnival: Pros and Cons (http://www.cranfordtalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2291 - broken link) Houses with character
Cranford Talk • View topic - Beautiful Cranford Homes and Buildings (http://www.cranfordtalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2168 - broken link)
We're about 30-40 minutes or so away, depending on traffic. But, who wants to go to that hellhole called NYC too often
Nice, quaint, downtown area - a plus
The very definition of downtown, sans big chains even. Several films and ads have been done in downtown, and it was used as the model for "Main Street" in a very recent Dominos Pizza commercial with the company CEO.
Movies
(esp, Guess Who with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher, which profiled and showed the town by name almost continuously)
Metuchen is a nice quaint town that has an excellent school district. It's located in Edison Township in Middlesex county. They're considered more of a borough. I love their Main St strip. It has cute shops & very quaint. They have a train station too, so you can get to NYC or Phila very easily. There are lots of good towns that have great school districts, but I just thought of Metuchen since you prefer a downtown/quaintness. I grew up in North Edison (which also has a great school district) but there's no downtown. I remember visiting Metuchen quite often to visit their coffee shops. It might be pricey though. How much are you willing to spend?
You grew up in Edison and don't know that Metuchen isn't part of Edison?
Well, I guess ya never know unless you start looking.... There are 4 bedroom homes out there that are under 1500 square feet, for example--I know because I lived in one.
Cranford is one of the the best towns because it's got that cool canoe club, plus fits pretty much all the rest of your criteria. I've heard nice things about South Amboy too, which is even closer to the real NJ water stuff (i.e. the ocean).
Apart from the water stuff, lots of towns for you to check out: Westfield, Maplewood/South Orange, Montclair, Metuchen, Fanwood, Millburn, Summit ... I'm sure there are others as well.
Definitely you'll want to have jobs lined up first, but it sounds like you know that already.
Best bet would be, after you have jobs lined up, move here and rent for the first year. It's really the best way to get to know the area and get a feel for the different towns. That way, you'll know for sure which towns you like best, so when you buy you can be sure you're in it for the long term (that's important around here, because unlike CA that's had a sudden crash, NJ is experiencing a slow but steady decline in real estate values, so even if you buy next year you can expect values to continue to sink for a while after that ... not a problem if you stay within your means and won't need to sell soon thereafter, but that's why long-term is key, hence renting for a year to be absolutely sure).
The OP stated they want to spend 500-600K for a four bedroom. Hmmmm....
That's do-able even today, and surely will be even more feasible as values continue to sink over the next couple of years ...
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