Ridgewood, New Jersey??

[jayali]

Any of you North Jersey mommas out there - I need input.

My husband and I currently live in our house at the shore. We both want to have DS go to school "up North". We started looking, never expecting to find anything in our VERY ridiculous price range. Well what happened(?), we found a small Cape in Ridgewood. It is small and old and needs work. We know nothing about the neighborhood, other then it is a good school district. So for all of you North Jersey girls(or guys) out there, can you tell us anything about this neighborhood in Ridgewood. It is the Hawes School District. The house is on Kenilworth between Spring and Grove. I am not sure if that area has neighborhood name. The house is at the top of our price range and on a smaller sized lot then we would like. It was also our first day of looking, so we are a little hesitant about jumping in so quickly. Oh what to do, what to do?

HELP! What should we do???

[LD92599]

I'm in Dumont but alot of the moms here: http://sahm.meetup.com/111/boards/ are in Ridgewood. I don't think you can go wrong anywhere in Ridgewood though! Post to meetup - this way when you're in our area you're already established w/ a playgroup, etc!

Laura
mom to William

LKibala @ optonline.net
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[jayali]

Thanks for the info. I signed up. Hopefully we will be up North soon!

[dowlinal]

I live two towns over from Ridgewood. In fact we take swim lessons at the Ridgewood YMCA and my LLL meets at a house in town. Honestly there isn't a bad neighborhood in Ridgewood and the schools are fabulous, but it is one of the more expensive towns in the area. All of the surrounding towns in that area are really nice and have good school systems so you might be able to do a little better for your money. Midland Park and Waldwick are probably the ones with the cheapest house prices, followed by Allendale prices . I think the prices in Wyckoff and Hohokus are comparable to Ridgewood but the taxes in those towns are cheaper. I think that the schools in Ridgewood are the best in the area but the schools in the surounding towns are all also quite good.

[Marisa6826]

I don't know about that specific neighbourhood, but in general, Ridgewood is absolutely beautiful. I'm pretty sure crime stats are quite low (Alexis' DH can probably confirm that - he's a cop in a neighbouring town). Very "Father of the Bride" type neighbourhoods. There's a very nice main street to walk - lots of good stores - really nice parks, a train right into NYC. Good restaurants, good grocery stores (even a Whole Foods right in town). There's a nice movie theatre, a very excellent hospital, lots of different churches.

The taxes are crazy, but the schools are excellent, and the downtown area is very well maintained. If you can somehow get 'into' Ridgewood, by all means, do it. We couldn't find anything for less than $500k at the time we were looking - and that was for center hall colonials in dire need of work and they only had one bathroom. Ridgewood was always at the top of my 'list', but we ran out of time and ended up looking in Essex county.

It's very family oriented, and is in Bergen County. Meaning that they have 'blue laws', where all retail (with the exception of anything involving food) is closed on Sunday. Ridgewood is about 30-40 minutes from NYC, and is near both the NJ Parkway and also Rt. 17, which has TONS of shopping.

My *only* hesitation about Ridgewood is that it's very homogenous in terms of who lives there. Very white, very upper middle class, very WASPy. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all, but I don't know if 'multi-culti' is important to you.

I would totally jump on the house if you can. Resale values in that area are excellent.

LMK if I can help you with anything else. There are a bunch of us relatively close to that area. ;)

Good luck and I hope you get it.

-m

[Marisa6826]

Laura-

Do you belong to this group? I just sent them a message about joining.

-m

[LD92599]

I do and love it! Unfortunately I don't get to partake in any of the daytime activities - and there's a TON of stuff going on. They also do Moms Night Out 2x per month at a restaurant, movies, etc (that's the stuff I do partake in!) and MN In at someone's home a few times per month!

It's a great group of ladies ~ some probably wonder where my kid is since i've only been to MNO's LOL so far!!!

It's mostly Bergen County w/ a bunch of Passaic/Morris thrown in, so you're not too far!

Laura
mom to William

LKibala @ optonline.net
[img]http://lilypie.com/baby3/030305/1/2/0/-5/.png

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[jayali]

Ladies,

Thank you so much for your input. We really LOVE Ridgewood and the surrounding areas. DH grew up in Bergen County and his whole family lives there. We are trying to keep our shore house and buy "entry" level into Ridgewood or Glen Rock. With this market it is hard everything is so ridiculously over priced! We also looked in the surrounding areas but, liked those two the best. From your responses I feel like we should go for it. I have a call out to our mortgage broker to see the absolutely top we can afford and then depending on what he comes back with we will make an offer. Keep your fingers crossed. I so want to be up in North Jersey with Matthew. Seems like there is more going on.

Thanks again for all of your responses. Let me know if you can think of anything else.

Hope to see you soon!

[juliekost]

My DH was tranferred out the North NJ in 2000. We lived in Ramsey (just north of Ridgewood). We loved going to Ridgewood to wander in town and check out the houses. I would have given anything to live there. Of course we were only out there for a little over a year but I would still move back in a heartbeat. I just loved norther NJ and even got to enjoy the blue laws.

I know not too helpful since Jake was just a tot there. I just couldn't believe how family oriented that area was.

Julie
Jake 11/9/98
Jordyn 12/31/02