Like Montclair- anything like that north like Englewood, Teaneck? (Fort Lee: sale, renting)
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We're a couple w/ a teen. We've been renting a house in Nyack since we moved from CA last year. We really like Nyack but getting into the city is more than we want to deal with. We're looking everywhere. We like Montclair and the more creative feel there. I want to look at places a bit north where we use the GW bridge if there are places that would be a good fit.
We'd like to be able to get into the city easily (under 45 min) but neither of us needs to commute daily. We do go in the evenings several times a week plus a couple of afternoons.
What we're looking for is a single family house w/ some space around us just enough not to feel as though others are on top of us. My husband's a pianist and doesn't want to feel conscious of others listening. wE love older houses. Non of the bilevel houses for us.
Range: 400-500k
3 bedrooms
Friendly neighborhood/ sense of community
Enough liberals that we don't feel like fish out of water.
Would love a walkable downtown w/ interesting shops
Arts
Good parks/ pool etc
Schools aren't a priority.
I don't know what Englewood is like. Other towns? Teaneck? I know there's a big Orthodox population. I wouldn't like that to dominate. I'm Jewish but not religious and don't like to be around predominantly religious people. I've heard there are a lot of musicians who live in Teaneck but don't know them personally. Are there areas where that isn't the predominant population?
Thanks for any ideas. And other thoughts of what might be good is appreciated.
There are definitely parts of both Englewood and Teaneck that are not predominantly Orthodox.
If you're looking in Englewood, I would look at NW Englewood, especially west of Tenafly Rd and north of Demarest Ave/Liberty Rd. (My family still lives in that area and fits your description of yourselves, though they are not Jewish.) Generally gets wealthier and nicer the further north/closer to the Tenafly border you get. In general, western Englewood, west of Engle St/Grand Ave, is diverse (closer to the Teaneck border and in the southwest is almost entirely black), while eastern Englewood is all white. Eastern Englewood is all wealthy, some extremely wealthy (but still relatively liberal), with the Orthodox concentrated in the SE of the city. SW Englewood is quite poor, NW Englewood middle class.
Englewood has a great, walkable downtown, the best in Bergen County (rivaled by Ridgewood), and in/near Englewood should be high on your list if that's important to you.
Generally the most diverse parts of Teaneck are in the SW, though I'm a little less familiar with Teaneck's demography. NW Teaneck is where the wealthy Orthodox predominate, though there are some everywhere except the NE part of the town (which is the mostly black area). Teaneck's downtown along Cedar Lane is also walkable but less so than Englewood's, though it's not hard to go to downtown Englewood from Teaneck.
Tenafly is not a diverse town the way Teaneck and Englewood are, but it is also liberal. However, it's much more expensive, primarily due to the high quality of the public schools, so it's probably not worthwhile for you if schools are not important.
To address the bus issue, you can get from Englewood to Port Authority in ~45 minutes outside of traffic and if there isn't an unusually large number of people using it to travel within Jersey, up to 1:15 if either of those break down. There might be faster routes and/or routes across the GWB I don't know of. If you're driving yourself, getting to/across the GWB is very fast, of course.
The one place where I disagree is I don't think the northwest is necessarily a better location for you than the northeast. The northeast is physically nicer (larger lots, larger homes, hilly, slightly more convenient to NYC and the nicer section of downtown), but, the northwest is more affordable and more diverse, so it's really a decision that could go either way and if you decide on looking at places in the town you should look into both.
Regardless, Englewood is a really good town for your needs so you've clearly done your research before posting the thread.
To address the bus issue, you can get from Englewood to Port Authority in ~45 minutes outside of traffic and if there isn't an unusually large number of people using it to travel within Jersey, up to 1:15 if either of those break down. There might be faster routes and/or routes across the GWB I don't know of. If you're driving yourself, getting to/across the GWB is very fast, of course.
The one place where I disagree is I don't think the northwest is necessarily a better location for you than the northeast. The northeast is physically nicer (larger lots, larger homes, hilly, slightly more convenient to NYC and the nicer section of downtown), but, the northwest is more affordable and more diverse, so it's really a decision that could go either way and if you decide on looking at places in the town you should look into both.
Regardless, Englewood is a really good town for your needs so you've clearly done your research before posting the thread.
Agree on the commute.
For $400-500k, there isn't a whole lot in NE Englewood, to my understanding. Whereas that would buy a very nice home around Hudson Ave in NW Englewood. Depends on flexibility of budget, I suppose (and maybe my data points are all pre-recession).
Edit: Just took a look on Streeteasy, and there is one current listing for a home in NE Englewood for $479k (http://streeteasy.com/new_jersey/sal...p-pl-englewood), but it's described as a fixer-upper, and the bottom otherwise looks like $700k or so. NW Englewood has a bunch of very nice $300-500k listings on Streeteasy.
Last edited by BrownstoneNY; 01-23-2013 at 08:25 PM..
Thank you both for this info. Today I spoke to a realtor and he suggested we look in Leonia a well. Better schools if we ever needed that. He said there are lots of older homes in nice neighborhoods. Actually right now I'm kind of overwhelmed and forget why exactly he thought that. He basically thought that it would be a fit.
Would you agree that Leonia might be good to look at? We'll probably go next week. We do have some flexibility if we're not going to have to pay Essex county taxes. I did think that the commute ( we wouldn't be going at rush hour if that makes a difference) wouldn't be as long as that.
Thank you both for this info. Today I spoke to a realtor and he suggested we look in Leonia a well. Better schools if we ever needed that. He said there are lots of older homes in nice neighborhoods. Actually right now I'm kind of overwhelmed and forget why exactly he thought that. He basically thought that it would be a fit.
Would you agree that Leonia might be good to look at? We'll probably go next week. We do have some flexibility if we're not going to have to pay Essex county taxes. I did think that the commute ( we wouldn't be going at rush hour if that makes a difference) wouldn't be as long as that.
Thanks again.
Leonia is a decent choice, too. Better schools than Englewood or Teaneck, not as good as Tenafly (which is routinely rated as one of the best school systems in the country). Leonia is a nice town overall, also with significant diversity as there's a lot of overflow from heavily Korean Palisades Park to the south. Leonia is a very leafy town with a lot of attractive older houses. It's pretty quiet and doesn't really have a downtown of its own, but it's right next to Englewood and Fort Lee, each of which has its own well-developed downtown. I don't know much about prices.
As for commutes, the commute times mentioned above are correct. There's an express bus on the 166 route (the 166X) that goes from Tenafly and Englewood then onto I-95 straight into NYC. From Leonia, there's a different express bus (the 166T) that goes through Leonia and Palisades Park then to I-95 via US-46. As a result, the commute from Leonia is about the same as the commute from Englewood, maybe actually marginally slower (by five minutes or so). Teaneck has a different bus route into NYC (I think it's the 165, but I'd have to check) that I think takes a similar amount of time, though if you live in SE Teaneck you might shave a few minutes off as the bus gets on the highway at Degraw Ave in SE Teaneck.
However, if you're not commuting regularly by bus but only heading into the city a few nights a week for shows or dinner or something, I think the best way to go is to take a bus from the Fort Lee bus terminal over the George Washington Bridge and then take the A train down to Midtown/wherever you're going. The Fort Lee bus terminal (and the GWB generally) is chaos at rush hours but very manageable if you're headed into the city at 7 pm on a Friday or a Saturday or something. I think that would take you 45 mins to get to Times Square that way, including driving to the bus terminal in Fort Lee (easy from any of those towns).
You can also drive over the GWB easily outside of rush hours (and other circumstances, like a Yankees game), and if you're lucky enough not to hit traffic it's twenty minutes to Midtown.
The one thing I would keep in mind about Leonia is that I think it has the potential to become more of an immigrant enclave like Palisades Park over the next decade or so, which isn't a problem necessarily but something to consider if you're planning to live there in the long term. The Broad Ave downtown in Palisades Park gives a sense of what I mean--literally everything there is in Korean rather than English, and that can be a little bit isolating if you're not Korean. This isn't true of Leonia at the moment, but it may be heading in that direction.
For $400-500k, there isn't a whole lot in NE Englewood, to my understanding. Whereas that would buy a very nice home around Hudson Ave in NW Englewood. Depends on flexibility of budget, I suppose (and maybe my data points are all pre-recession).
Edit: Just took a look on Streeteasy, and there is one current listing for a home in NE Englewood for $479k (StreetEasy: 166 Winthrop Pl. - House Sale in Englewood, Bergen County), but it's described as a fixer-upper, and the bottom otherwise looks like $700k or so. NW Englewood has a bunch of very nice $300-500k listings on Streeteasy.
Whereas the last time I looked closely was pretty much the height of it.
It does look like there's nothing in budget right now if you define Engle as the border. I always though of it as Dean, stretching to Tenafly Rd. up north near Ivy Lane, which is something of an intermediate between the northwest and up on the hill.
Regardless going by what appears to be on the market on the internet right now it looks like you're right.
Edit: and I do agree that the area near Hudson avenue is quite nice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sonno23
Thank you both for this info. Today I spoke to a realtor and he suggested we look in Leonia a well. Better schools if we ever needed that. He said there are lots of older homes in nice neighborhoods. Actually right now I'm kind of overwhelmed and forget why exactly he thought that. He basically thought that it would be a fit.
Would you agree that Leonia might be good to look at? We'll probably go next week. We do have some flexibility if we're not going to have to pay Essex county taxes. I did think that the commute ( we wouldn't be going at rush hour if that makes a difference) wouldn't be as long as that.
Thanks again.
Leonia is good town -both for your needs and in general - as well, and the schools are far better, but you pay for that. If there is a real possibility that you will use the school system it is a better choice, flat out, but if you don't you will spend more and/or get a less nice house/surroundings. It boils down to whether or not you plan on having kids - if yes, Leonia is a no-brainer over Englewood, and vice-versa if not Englewood is a no-brainer over Leonia.
It is worth pointing out as Brownstone said that Leonia is heavily Korean (to the point where it has a real impact on the character of the town) and only becoming more so -- the population there is an intermediate between the FOBs in Palisades Park and the assimilated population you find further north. In my opinion it's nothing but a good thing since they bring good food, better schools, and higher property values with them, but having such a large unassimilated immigrant group in the area does bother some people.
Yes, being in a community that's insular (Korean, Orthodox, whatever) isn't what we're looking for so thank you for that heads up. We'd like to be in a neighborhood where people want to be neighborly. When I mentioned the high Korean population in Leonia to the realtor he said there's a large Asian population everywhere around there but looking at the stats on city-data that isn't born out.
Are there neighborhoods where people have that family friendly feeling or is it so close to the city that that's really the main focus. Just a place to live so to be close and that invested in the community?
Whereas the last time I looked closely was pretty much the height of it.
It does look like there's nothing in budget right now if you define Engle as the border. I always though of it as Dean, stretching to Tenafly Rd. up north near Ivy Lane, which is something of an intermediate between the northwest and up on the hill.
Regardless going by what appears to be on the market on the internet right now it looks like you're right.
Edit: and I do agree that the area near Hudson avenue is quite nice.
Leonia is good town -both for your needs and in general - as well, and the schools are far better, but you pay for that. If there is a real possibility that you will use the school system it is a better choice, flat out, but if you don't you will spend more and/or get a less nice house/surroundings. It boils down to whether or not you plan on having kids - if yes, Leonia is a no-brainer over Englewood, and vice-versa if not Englewood is a no-brainer over Leonia.
It is worth pointing out as Brownstone said that Leonia is heavily Korean (to the point where it has a real impact on the character of the town) and only becoming more so -- the population there is an intermediate between the FOBs in Palisades Park and the assimilated population you find further north. In my opinion it's nothing but a good thing since they bring good food, better schools, and higher property values with them, but having such a large unassimilated immigrant group in the area does bother some people.
englewoods wards are divided by the RAILROAD TRACKS ( not quite dean st but sure as hell aint grand ) and palisade ave ... 4th being sw 1st being se and rotating
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