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An hour on a train is much less taxing than an hour on a freeway in southern California. I would say the biggest con is winter. The person looking for IT/Data job might be able to find one in the suburbs, and not have the same commute.
Right. For us, Orange County's weather and asian community would be nicer. We both do not quite like cold weather and driving in snow...I can take subway/train to work in Manhattan, my spouse would have to drive if living in the suburb.
There are a lot of jobs in the NYC area. If you do choose NJ, there are places like Prudential and Panasonic in Newark. SoCal's market always seemed hard to get into comparatively.
I wonder why you say "SoCal's market always seemed hard to get into comparatively.", because of more competition?
One of us is offered a job at Manhattan and also a job in Southern California. The other one will be looking for a job in IT/Data Science. Pros and Cons of living in New York instead of Orange County.
Pros for NYC:
1. Salary is higher (about 220-230k, about 40k higher than OC), position is higher in rank of social hierarchy;
2. Spouse can easily find a job.
Cons for NYC:
1. we will need to have a house for the growing family. So the best option would be either a place in Westchester County or New Jersey;
2. Long commute time for both of us if living far away: 1 hour door to door one way is minimum; Does it wear you out after a while?
3. School district is our biggest concerns, not many good choices;
4. much higher property tax.
We would appreciate if any of you could give us some advice/insights on possibly living in commuter communities in NYC. Thank you!
You might also want to look at northeastern Queens. Look at the neighborhoods of Bayside, Auburndale, Douglaston, Little Neck, or Great Neck in Long Island. Look anywhere in northeastern Queens or northwestern Nassau County that is in proximity to a LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) stop. If you're making over 200K, you should be able to find something in your price range.
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You might also want to look at northeastern Queens. Look at the neighborhoods of Bayside, Auburndale, Douglaston, Little Neck, or Great Neck in Long Island. Look anywhere in northeastern Queens or northwestern Nassau County that is in proximity to a LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) stop. If you're making over 200K, you should be able to find something in your price range.
Thank you, we will take a look. Thank you for your insights!
Which neighborhoods in Westchester County would you guys recommend? Scardsdale is nice but it's hugely expensive..
For a couple with no kids, Larchmont, Hartsdale, Bronxville Village/Yonkers with Bronxville PO (either us Bronxville train stop). When you have school age kids, your circumstances might be different and you can upsize.
I think New Jersey can provide a quality family home and school systems you are looking for. In Bergen and Essex County, the public school systems are of high quality, with many of these students eventually attending very good colleges and universities. As for the job, it all depends on location. If the job is in midtown, you have NJ Transit to Penn Station.
If it's downtown (moreso in Financial District area or a little north), you have the NJ Transit connection to the Hoboken Terminal path to WTC. A bit longer of a commute but doable.
It's a pain as well in so cal, but usually takes less than 40 minutes if living not too far away. We looked into quite a few areas near Manhattan, but none of them seems to have good schools (i.e. ratings above 7 on a scale of 10 based on school rating reports).
Yea but a 40 minute drive in a car vs an hour door to door with 40 mins of you just sitting down and reading, snoozing, browsing the interwebs or whatever on the Metro North is no comparison. A car commute is a drag - and you gotta wake up as soon as you get in it!
Id keep it an hour door to door if you can, that seems to be a natural limit for many without it getting wearing. Longer than that starts to require psychological fortitutde.
Unless I missed it, you have not said what your budget is because this 40K increase that you will receive by moving to NY, after income tax, might be all eaten up by property taxes and commute costs. To get a decent house in an area with great schools, and under an hour commute to NYC, you are looking to spend a minimum of 700K, and this is really on the very low end of it, probably, overtly optimistic amount. I am talking about the area of Westchester/NJ such as Scarsdale, Larchmont in Westchester and Summit, Millburn, Short Hills in NJ. Move only if you believe that you will have a huge upside in NY that you cannot get in Orange County. If this 40K bump is just the start and you believe that very soon, two of you can be pulling close to 1 mln and there is no way that you can pull this much in Orange county, probably it's worth it.
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