Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

DH and I live in Manhattan, but he grew up in Jersey and the plan is for us to move to a house within a year. He wants to move to a very nice place that is easily commutable to Manhattan - thinking of Chatham, Madison, Short Hills, Summit, Milbourne, Westfield, etc.

Does anyone have any tips / suggestions or just want to respond with anything that comes to mind? Anyone live near any of these communities - can you suggest real estate agents?

TIA!!

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

I know Short Hills is very expensive, but DH's friend recently moved to an awesome place in Livingston. Another friend of his moved to West Orange. Both bought into the cutest towns!

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

mY family lives in Ridgewood and Oakland, really nice and close to the bridges.

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

We are moving to NJ also except we are looking in Manelapan, Freehold and Malborro because it will be closer to DH new job.

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

DH and I just moved into our new townhouse this weekend in Springfield (in Union County). I commuted into Manhattan this morning on the train (from the Millburn station) and it wasn't bad at all. The train ride was less than 40 minutes. And Springfield is a great area! So far, we love it!

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

I live in Springfield also and commute out of Maplewood. It's a great town like Becky said! Great areas (but more expensive) are Millburn, Livingston, Westfield and Summit.

The only thing is that if you commute to the city some towns don't have a direct train line. Millburn and Summit do but Libvingston you either drive to another town or take the bus. Westfield you have to change trains in Newark - so just something to think about.

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

We looked in those areas and settled in New Providence.

For Summit and surrounding areas we used Burgdorff Realty - Macy Egerton & Robert Mckee (they work as a team and how we found our house)

For Westfield we also used Burgdorff Realty and a woman named Mary Alice (can't remember her last name)

If you have any questions, feel free to FM me!

Re: Anyone planning on or already live in NJ??

We moved to NJ seven months ago for DHs job. We looked in Chatham, Madison, Summit and Westfield, however at our price point (350-400,000), we were not able to afford anything in Chatham. In Madison and Summit we were looking at 1 bedroom apartments, and the 2 bedroom apartments in the brick buildings were not for us. They looked like they needed a LOT of work and if we had already spent what they were asking we would not have had any money to fix the places up. Westfiled had some places in our range but I did not feel like I loved the townhomes. Perhaps some of the prices have decreased in the last few months but I am not sure.

To note, to "drive" to Summit and take the train one must LIVE in Summit to be able to park in any of the lots. There is a public lot that is far away from the train but it is full by 5:45 am.

Please feel free to FM me. We only moved to NJ a little while ago but if there is any advice I can give I happily will.

ETA: DH's job is in Basking Ridge and because I was unsure if I wanted to take the NYC job offer I had after graduating from law school we moved out to Bedminster, NJ. Having commuted to NYC from here it is far. It is a little over an hour by bus, but the bus pick up is a few blocks from our townhome. Our community is fantastic. I feel like we got a great home and I will (hopefully) be starting my new job in NJ in a few weeks so I am really glad that we live here. Our commute is 10-15 minutes to work.

Message edited 5/30/2006 11:03:36 AM.