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Old 12-20-2017, 04:51 PM
 
132 posts, read 168,497 times
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I'm looking to get out of the city and trying to juggle the same impossible balance as everybody else (good school district + commute time vs. home prices). The goal is a travel time of less than an hour door-to-door for my commute which ends near Grand Central. Briarcliff Manor seems nice but I think would be too far, I also have a very difficult time figuring out what's in Briarcliff and what's in Ossining school districts. Given the commute time goal it seems like Irvington, Edgemont, Scarsdale, Rye are the leading contenders. I know there is no perfect way to compare school districts but I found this map online. Would people make any large changes to these relative rankings?

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Old 12-20-2017, 06:28 PM
 
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What about Pelham, Tuckahoe or Ardsley?
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Old 12-20-2017, 11:35 PM
 
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North white plains - Valhalla school district. Always commuter parking at that station and easily accessible
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Old 12-21-2017, 06:28 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LeavingNYCfast View Post
I'm looking to get out of the city and trying to juggle the same impossible balance as everybody else (good school district + commute time vs. home prices). The goal is a travel time of less than an hour door-to-door for my commute which ends near Grand Central. Briarcliff Manor seems nice but I think would be too far, I also have a very difficult time figuring out what's in Briarcliff and what's in Ossining school districts. Given the commute time goal it seems like Irvington, Edgemont, Scarsdale, Rye are the leading contenders. I know there is no perfect way to compare school districts but I found this map online. Would people make any large changes to these relative rankings?
No, that looks pretty accurate to me. If commute time is important to you, then remember to look at specific stations. For example, Croton is a one stop ride to the city. Its further north, but has a faster train ride than half the towns south of it because for virtually all the rush hour trains, its right to 125/Grand Central after Croton, and right to Croton on the way home. A 30 minute train ride with 6 stops adding 2 minutes per stop, is about the same as 45 minute train ride with no stops. Also, remember to look at parking and time to get to the station. Some stations are on a highway while others are in a town with lots of lights and traffic in rush hours. A ten minute shorter train ride with a ten minute longer drive to the station does not help you.

Also, if land is important, forget anything south of 287 and most things south of ossining. Land was the deciding factor for me. I wanted a couple of acres at least, which was not happening south county. But the north counties, with those dark green/blue strong schools on that map, have great value, lots of land, but lousy commute times. So balance all these things out. A $600k house in Cortlandt or Yorktown is a $1.5k house south county. Good luck to you.
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Old 12-21-2017, 08:18 AM
 
132 posts, read 168,497 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ckhthankgod View Post
What about Pelham, Tuckahoe or Ardsley?
We're looking in the $750k-$1M range and everything I've seen in Pelham, and Rye for that matter, in our range have been tiny and/or need to be practically gut renovated. I'd be up to redoing a kitchen and maybe a bathroom or two but if every room in the house needs work that's more than I think I can handle. Ardsley seems really nice and has good home prices but you run into the problem Dr. Strangelove mentioned about commuting. It looks like it's sort of stranded between towns with trains so you add probably 15 minutes of commuting to get to Scarsdale or Dobbs Ferry trains right? I looked briefly at Bronxville but not Tuckahoe.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dr.strangelove
If commute time is important to you, then remember to look at specific stations. For example, Croton is a one stop ride to the city. Its further north, but has a faster train ride than half the towns south of it because for virtually all the rush hour trains, its right to 125/Grand Central after Croton, and right to Croton on the way home. ... Also, if land is important, forget anything south of 287 and most things south of ossining. Land was the deciding factor for me. I wanted a couple of acres at least, which was not happening south county. But the north counties, with those dark green/blue strong schools on that map, have great value, lots of land, but lousy commute times.
Is there a good way to get which stations have express trains other than just pulling up the schedule for each individual station on the Metro North website? Land would be nice but is probably the first thing we will trade off. I think price > commute time > schools > quality of house > size of lot is probably our priority order. I'm usually in the office from 8:15am - 6:30pm and I really want to avoid being in a situation where my son is in bed/going to bed by the time I get home from work each day. He's not quite a year old so the schools thing is more planning for the future as we'd rather not move/change communities once it's time for school.
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Old 12-22-2017, 11:45 AM
 
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Anyone know why the map OP posted does NOT correlate with the greatschools ratings from their website/redfin. So confusing!
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Old 12-23-2017, 09:59 AM
 
132 posts, read 168,497 times
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My graphic came from a simple google search so I have no idea what year that was created which is why I asked here for thoughts. Are there specific districts you would change?
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Old 12-23-2017, 01:23 PM
 
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It may be a matter of the year the map was created in relation to current rankings available, which are still a year or two behind.

You can also view information on the NYSED Report Card website: https://data.nysed.gov
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Old 12-23-2017, 07:19 PM
 
263 posts, read 341,794 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LeavingNYCfast View Post
We're looking in the $750k-$1M range and everything I've seen in Pelham, and Rye for that matter, in our range have been tiny and/or need to be practically gut renovated. I'd be up to redoing a kitchen and maybe a bathroom or two but if every room in the house needs work that's more than I think I can handle. Ardsley seems really nice and has good home prices but you run into the problem Dr. Strangelove mentioned about commuting. It looks like it's sort of stranded between towns with trains so you add probably 15 minutes of commuting to get to Scarsdale or Dobbs Ferry trains right? I looked briefly at Bronxville but not Tuckahoe.
Even if you are in other towns, most houses are not walking distance to train stations, and train proximity increases home price dramatically. So you can be in scarsdale and still have a 10 min drive to the station.

For us, we wanted the same things you are looking for and qwe didn't have much time to house hunt. We bought a house in Ardsley. I work three blocks from grand Central and we both commute out of Scarsdale. We get non-resident parking at the Freightway Garage so my door-2-door is 55 minutes to one hour. Train ride alone is 34 minutes in the am and 29 minutes coming back. Trains are crowded but i always get a seat bc i dont mind taking the middle seat.

Schools are good, commute is very good, neighbors are great, i love it. We could not have bought an equally nice house in Bronxville or other towns.

So we are happy! Good luck!
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Old 12-25-2017, 12:22 PM
 
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The map is very accurate. The north end of New Rochelle is also very nice. You can use Davis elementary school and the middle school but would probably have to send kids to private high school. Larger lots there. Easy access to Scarsdale train station from many parts of new Rochelle’s north end.
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