Hellobee Boards

So I’d recommend looking at the NJ Transit (public transit into NYC from NJ) website and the Metro North website (public transit from Westchester, CT and Long Island into NYC) and see which areas achieve a commute under an hour. Then check out those areas. They will be expensive, everything close to the city is. Commute time will also depend on where your husband’s office is. Getting into NYC could take an hour but it could easily take another 20 plus minutes to get across town. Just to give you a point of reference, I live in NJ exactly 15 miles from Manhattan and my commute into midtown takes an hour, sometimes more.

very biased NYC native here, but i think living in the boroughs is the way to go. both my husband and i work, and i just think our quality of life is so much better because not only is the commute shorter, but you have so many fewer nightmare days where the commute makes your trek home 2+ hours instead of 45 minutes, or whatever. i would think as a SAHM it would also be great because there are so many people and activities in easy reach, you would never feel isolated!

of course, it's pricey to live in the city, but...most of the NYC suburbs are pretty pricey too, and the prices unsurprisingly correspond to public school quality.

if you think the burbs are more for you, some charming communities in NJ to consider include montclair, maplewood, and summit. westchester can definitely be super pricey as well, if scarsdale or rye are out of the price range, i think harrison, larchmont, or mamaroneck could be nice alternatives (not saying they're cheap, tho...just cheaper).

one factor to consider is that recent failure to invest in the hudson river tunnel infrastructure has made the NJ transit system probably a bit more overcrowded/unreliable than the MTA, which serves westchester and CT. being near 30 rock, you're also probably better off coming into grand central (which means MTA) rather than penn station (which means NJ Transit).

hope this random assortment of information is helpful! agree with the suggestion to start by looking at train tables to figure out your train ride tolerance, and factor in the travel time on both ends.

@helloperidot: i know--it's freakin crazy!!! i mean, rye is probably one of the top 3 richest suburbs so that's definitely the top of the range, but, yeah. it's a lot.

hm, not sure about websites--i usually use streeteasy to find rentals in the city, that's owned by zillow. i always thought zillow had more sales than rentals. the nytimes has a real estate page that you can search, might be worth trying that as they'll link you to major brokers if nothing else.

some neighborhoods to consider--upper west side, chelsea, inwood in manhattan. park slope, brooklyn heights, carroll gardens in brooklyn are all great but becoming even more expensive than manhattan. for better value, i would recommend checking out ditmas park in brooklyn or sunnyside or forest hills in queens.

google maps' public transit estimates are actually pretty good if you're looking to get a sense of what the subway commute time would be like.

@helloperidot: oh and I agree that taking the train into grand central would be a lot easier than penn station (nj transit goes into penn station).

Yep, I’d agree with @Littlebit7 if you’re open to renting. We were originally in Brooklyn before we landed in one of the NJ towns mentioned above, and there’s no way I could have picked between Westchester, NJ and CT from afar - they are just too different. We visited so many towns, so many, before finding the one that felt like us. I love BK personally (Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Park Slope are all close to NYC and super duper kid friendly), but have heard great things about Hoboken, and you’ll certainly get more bang for your buck. Also, dear lord, please don’t use Rye as a benchmark for rental prices! It’s an extremely wealthy town. If you were willing/able to pay $14k a month in rent, you should just live in Manhattan! You’ll be able to find something nice well below that.

If you're definitely renting at first I like the idea that @Littlebit7: floated, it sounds really digestible. I live in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn right now and I love it here, but agree with you that living like this isn't the way to go, especially if you're SAH and you guys only have one commute to worry about.

We are looking hard right now at buying in Maplewood/South Orange/Montclair, it feels most affordable and least culturally yucky to us. We also looked at the river towns in Westchester (Hastings on Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown) but don't like the actual houses nearly as much. If you're set on renting and you really want a real house with a yard, I would look at those river towns, they're really cute and the commute would be comparatively pretty breezy for your husband through Metro North. I'm surprised no one has mentioned them yet (unless I missed it above). Rye is fucking crazy, plus it's very country club culture, frankly sounds not great to me, as do many of the other uber-rich areas, so don't get intimidated--it's not like the only option is to live next door to the Clinton compound Not surprised that no one is talking about Long Island, it's not as nice out there at large.

One other thing to consider is if he's coming from NJ, lots of people take the bus instead of NJ Transit train, and those drop off at Port Authority--that's a little bit of a hike but it is walkable to Rock Center.

DH and I both work in midtown and live in Bloomfield NJ which is right next to Montclair. I take the bus to port authority and walk 20 minutes across town. Had I been renting and didn't have to pay insane Montclair taxes I would have considered that area too. Commute is more like 75 minutes than an hour though. We love it here, good schools, food, parks. Other NJ towns to consider would be Summit, West Orange, Maplewood. I used to live in Hoboken but it's a nightmare if you have a car.

We moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn to an NJ suburb just about a year ago. I walled you with some more specifics for towns you might want to consider. There are lots of great options of smaller towns with slightly lower property tax rates than the "big name" towns everyone in the city talks about.

@helloperidot: it really depends on what you’re looking for. Do you want to be in a city or suburb? Westchester is great, very pricey. On Metro West (which goes into Grand Central) There are a lot of great towns.... Connecticut is a great option if you want to be a little further out but in some great towns. Greenwich, Westport, Fairfield (just a few) fantastic towns right on the train... we have a bunch of friends in Fairfield which is a little further out but a nice big town. Friends in Westport too, so beautiful, but VERY wealthy, and closer to the city.... I don’t know much about the New Jersey commute & towns but I know that’s popular too. I think basically the closer to Manhattan the more expensive but basically the entire radius around has some great pockets! Congrats. So exciting to move across the country.

Re: North Jersey, Essex County- South Orange/Maplewood/Montclair might be good to look into. Easy train commute into the city (Midtown Direct train from SO and Maplewood at east) cute "villages" with cultural opportunities/kids programming/local restaurants, beautiful homes (not cookie cutter), lots of young families. The biggest issue in that area are the high property taxes which wouldn't be an issue if you're renting.

I've lived in Westchester half my life and now in Long Island and have commuted into the city in both places. Really depends on your budget! Both Westchester and Long Island are very family friendly. Westchester has the country feel with mountains and lots of trees, etc. Long Island is pretty flat, but we have lots of beaches, farms, etc as well. Both have trains that go into NYC, and you can choose to live somewhere that is close to a bigger train hub/that has express trains. Feel free to wall me! And yes, as previously posters mentioned, Westchester goes right into Grand Central, while LI goes into Penn Station. But one caveat of Westchester is if you might travel into Queens/Long Island regularly, you have to pay bridge tolls where as being in Long Island you can technically get into the city without tolls.

@Alba4: I grew up in Westchester and lived/worked there till my mid-twenties... So much love for this place

Northern Westchester is definitely more Stars Hollow-y.

Not so much in LI - Maybe Huntington/Port Jeff but the commute will be longer for your DH

But I'll say that most of the really cute towns in Westchester with good school distracts are sky high. I loved the town I grew up in but can never afford it now. LI is high too but do have pockets of cheaper towns... My house now is probably worth at least 10-20k more than when I bought it ~5 years ago.

I like central NJ and Long Island, although all the LI towns I've been to seem very sleepy. You do get a lot of bang for your buck there though. I think schools are generally OK, but you've got to check ratings to be sure about the specific place you're looking at.

North NJ feels like the worst of NYC - the same traffic, crowding, and lack of space, but you've got to pay more for commuting because you take rail, then a NYC train or bus (I do know people who bike to work, but obviously that's not for everyone and for every day).

There are parts of Brooklyn and Queens that are very family-friendly and have lots of kids' activities and classes. Park Slope and Carroll Gardens are only two of many options, and they're wildly overpriced. You probably want to look at school ratings and reviews first to narrow things down... I think for elementary school you're pretty much tied to your zone unless you test into a Gifted and Talented program (yeah, they test four-year-olds. No kidding). For middle and high school, there's more leeway, but a good zoned school is always a plus.

I can't say much about the other boroughs... I like them all, but Brooklyn and Queens are my favorites for combining a good choice of kids' activities, access to what passes for nature in NYC, and decent schools.

@helloperidot: Could you give us a little more information about what your search parameters are? The hour commute can be surprisingly difficult, if you mean an hour door to door, and not an hour just on the train/bus itself. What is your rental budget? That will help a lot. I've never seen Gilmore Girls, so I'm not sure what that means--is that like, sleepy small town? Or just quaint town with cute main street area?

We also live in Hoboken and we love it! It's definitely urban though. Less urban than Manhattan, in terms of street busyness, but the housing is urban, and yet there's somehow still a little bit of a small town feel. I think we have about 55,000 people living in about 1 square mile, but we have a quaint main street and a TON of kid-and-family friendly things to do and places to go. We also have free public Pre-K3 and 4, and my daughter is in her second year and it's a really fabulous program. Between my two kids, we've tried 4 local daycares, and I actually like her public pre-k program the best. Although it is a lottery, last year they placed something like 550 spaces out of 700 applying, so chances are good for getting in. If you don't get in, there are a ton of private pre-k options in town ranging from very part time (couple hours a day) to totally full time. So if you want to rent for a year or two while you explore the area, I would recommend it. My husband's commute is about 30 min door to door, which is great. There's a bus stop right by my daughter's school, so he drops her at 8 am and is at work by 8:35-8:40 most days.

My friends from Hoboken have been staying here more and more (and we all have 2 kids), but a few have made the move to the suburbs. My friends love Maplewood/South Orange (these towns go together), which is known as kind of a progressive enclave, Millburn which is next door and is less progressive but top notch schools, Chatham which is probably the most "upper middle class suburban". I would put Livingston in that same category. All of these towns have tons to do for families and children. But I don't think Chatham or Livingston would ever be under 1 hour commute. More like 1.5 hours--my friend that moved to Chatham has been there now 2.5 years and they still are on the list to get a train station parking pass, so almost every day her husband Ubers to the station or she drops them. Just seems like an added layer of stress and takes longer.

I also have a handful of friends who have moved to Westchester. One friend bought a place in Bronxville--great schools but also very expensive. Great commute into the city for your husband. Another friend moved to New Rochelle. She mentioned the schools are "not very good" (I don't know what that means), but they had already picked a particular private school for their kids, so the public schools didn't matter to them. And I have one friend that is currently househunting in Eastchester. These are all suburbs that have houses a bit closer together and are closer in with better commutes.

Can you come here and airbnb for a couple of weeks and try out different locations and commutes? We moved here from Texas and my husband was 100% set on living in Manhattan. We got a broker in the city to show us apartments in our price range, and then I convinced him to get a broker in Hoboken/Jersey City to see what the same budget got us there. He switched from 100% against "Jersey" to 100% for it after touring both towns. We airBnBd in both Manhattan (when that was still legal!) and in Hoboken and he actually preferred Hoboken, because it's still busy but not super, super busy like Manhattan.

We have a garage space for our car, so we kind of have the best of both worlds--we live in a walkable place with good public transport, but we can also drive anywhere at any time.

Feel free to ask any other questions!