Hello! As a Realtor who lives and works in the New Jersey suburbs of Millburn / Short Hills, I regularly meet couples who are ready to give up city life for the advantages of the suburbs but are apprehensive about the change in life style. Having made the same transition about 7 years ago, I thought I’d share my perspective through this blog, with absolutely no strings attached!

Let’s start with the first question that everyone has. How is the commute to the city? If you live in a town with a NJ Transit train station such as Millburn/Short Hills, Maplewood, or Summit, you are in for a relatively smooth ride. These towns are on both the Morris & Essex, as well as the Gladstone train lines. Typically your train ride would be 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the station you board from. If you decide to look at one of the towns west of Summit (further out from New York city), the commute time goes up a bit but, perhaps more importantly, these towns by served by a single train line and the choice of trains goes down a bit. Towns like Chatham, Madison, and New Providence- while all being terrific towns to live in, therefore present somewhat longer commutes.

(NJ transit map: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/rail/Rail_System_Map.pdf

Train schedule: http://www.njtransit.com/sf/sf_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction=TrainTo )

As you probably know, NJ Transit takes you to NY Penn Station or Hoboken, and depending on where you work, your options are to walk / cab or take the subway / PATH to your place of work once you reach either of these two destinations. For those of you with offices in down town NYC your choices are to either take NJ Transit to Penn Station and subway going downtown, or NJT to Hoboken and Path to WTC.

All train stations in these towns have adequate parking so having a second (inexpensive?) car that you can park at the station is the way to go. Alternatively, you could find a home that allows you to walk to the station but, if you want my opinion, since there are a number of other requirements which are likely to be on your list of what you want from a home, you should consider pushing ‘walk to the train station’ lower down in that list of priorities. That way, you will have a much broader range of homes to choose from. There is, of course, an annual or semi-annual town resident parking fee which varies from town to town.

If you are considering moving to a town without a train station such as Livingston, one commute option for you might be to drive to Harrison (20-25 minute drive) and take the PATH train into the city from there. There are also Park and Ride options at a couple of locations near Livingston where you can park your car and ride the commuter bus into Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. The most popular locations are the Livingston Mall and the Richard Codey Arena in West Orange.

Well, this is it for a quick overview and I hope it helps! I’ll write about schools next time and discuss public vs. private, school ratings and what they mean, and most importantly how your choice of town may be driven by these.

For more information on Transportation options feel free to call me at 201-892-7649 or email me at Njrealtor.ruchi@gmail.com