Moving around NYC

[Anonymous]

Hello,

My DH may be moved from his DC position to one in NYC. There would be a raise, but not much of one.

We (dd 12, ds' 10 and 4) live in a 1950's tract house in Fairfax City. Not exactly the place you'd seek out to live your life in, but nice enough and the older kids can now bike to the library,

Old Town etc and are able to go to AAP schools (which they love).

The commute is an hour in bad traffic- you can't get out of that.

I know nothing about NYC and its suburbs except that it seems super expensive. I would say that we could only buy around 600,000.

If someone were to ask me, I'd say my comfort level leans more towards a crunchy sort of nieghborhood--but then again, I kind of like to steer clear of extremes on either side. Our block holds GMU group homes, elderly residents, two same sex families, conservatives, hyper liberals etc.. the proverbial gamut.

In an either/or situation, we'd rather have more back yard than house.

Taking the train would be ideal.

Bearing in mind that my info is basic at best..does anyone have any ideas as to where we might want to look?

[Anonymous]

OP here. I should mention that the only idea we have so far is Cold Spring- but that's because we spent a fun weekend there.
Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Consider Katonah, New York in Westchester county - great public schools. Kind of crunchy, granola area. Property tax is high everywhere in Westchester - Katonah has a range of home prices- closer to the city you go the more difficult to find a decent home in your price range. Oh and it's about an hour by train.

[Anonymous]

My college roommate, who's pretty granola crunchy, lives in Katonah and she really likes it. It's a beautiful area with great places to hike nearby and a cute little downtown. Schools sounds pretty good -- her kids are in h.s. and college now, but attended public K-12. So that all sounds like it matches your description of what you're looking for in a community. What might not be a great match is the makeup of the community. My impression is that Katonah isn't very diverse in the way you describe your n-hood. Also, I think housing prices tend to be on the higher side, but that's just a general impression. Oh, another thing to consider -- you can probably bike into the downtown area if you live really close by, but Katonah has more of a country feel with houses spread pretty far apart and winding roads, so it might not be so bike friendly for little kids. My friend's DH does a lot of cycling as do her kids now, but when they were younger I think this was less feasible.

Another area to consider is Montclair, NJ. My sister lives there and we grew up in granola crunchy Northern California, so that's a good recommendation. Montclair is more urban than Katonah and more diverse. There are several shopping areas in town, and my sister's kids bike and walk to movies, bagel place, ice cream parlor all the time. Retail is a mix of one-off local places (e.g., sporting goods store, wine shop) and some chains (e.g., GAP, Williams-Sonoma, Coldstone). There are lots of great restos in town. The public schools are good, but the desire to maintain a diverse community has led to the creation of a lottery for elementary schools. This can be daunting, though it worked out very well for my sister's kids, and most of her neighbors seem quite happy with the schools as well. Montclair doesn't have the natural beauty of Katonah, though there is beautiful preservation area for hiking. Like Katonah, there's a surprisingly lively arts scene in town with music, theatre and film series.

HTH, OP; good luck!

[Anonymous]

Montclair is REALLY expensive.

[Anonymous]

Teaneck is crunchy and less expensive than Monclair.

[Anonymous]

OP here- I actually have family that now live in upstate, so I think that we're going to limit our search up the metro north line.

Thanks for the ideas- I had never heard of Katonah before. Sounds like a good place to start.

[Anonymous]

The critical detail here--as it always is in these threads--what is your housing budget, OP? Advice about where to live is pretty meaningless without that information.

[Anonymous]

PP- per the original post, the OP says $600,000

[Anonymous]

Irvington in Westchester Cty or New Rochelle

[Anonymous]

Clifton is next to Montclair but is cheaper, and still supposedly has nice schools. A friend bought a small cape there last year for $330k. I visited and found it to be nice and family-friendly.

[Anonymous]

New Rochelle schools not great. Irvington not crunchy/granola and expensive.

[Anonymous]

We did a househunt in Westchester a few years back, and you can find stuff in the 600s, but the property taxes were much higher than we were paying in Moco (I recall a house for $720 with taxes of $24K/yr). Something to factor into your budget. (We looked but eventually moved elsewhere).

I would try some of the river towns (along the Hudson), as people described them to us as more "crunchy" and artsy. They did not strike us as very strongly so, but we were only there briefly.

I liked the area and heard good things about the schools, but the cost of living seemed higher than DC and the commute for us would have been over an hour.

[Anonymous]

Maplewood, NJ. Houses available in your price point. Relatively diverse community with a cute town center. Easy commute into the city via commuter train.

[Anonymous]

If OP wants to live along Metro North line, NJ is out.