Bergen County towns vs Holmdel (Newark, Camden: low income, section 8, real estate)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Monmouth County is closer to the beach, so you can go check out the shore points after work or on a whim. In Bergen County it is a big deal to go down the Shore, that becomes a religious trip. I find people in Monmouth County are more likely to explore outside the state and try new things as well since the Shore is part of their life. The big trips of the year for my s/o family was a week in Wildwood/Ocean City for a few thousand bucks because it was 'close to home and easy to get back to work'. Now we actually travel and they realize it is actually fun to go to Florida and Maine and Newport and NC on the whim lol.
The culture in Monmouth County NJ isnt: Get up. Commute to NYC. Work. Commute home. East dinner. Repeat. Shop. Monmouth County has a bit of variation.
Bergen County is so heavily trafficked, especially by 17/GSP/4 that you learn not to leave the house after work until 7:15 PM. On Saturdays? Forget it. Stay home lol. Monmouth County is less built up so theres more freedom/variety of stuff to do that isnt all urbanism.
Monmouth County has better parks and is better for day trips. imo. Bergen County towns start getting repetitive. Some towns are just strip malls, while other ones are really nice (Ridgewood, Westwood) but don't offer a whole lot off stuff that is affordable and cool.
People in Bergen County are obsessed with getting their kids in good schools or private schools... and they turn out the same as other kids lol. They pay so much for less, and get the same in return. I get it, I am from Massachusetts.. education is the top of the top there.. but even in MA they don't go that far for the same lol. It gives 'they are doing too much'.
Finally, the people. People are much more friendly in Monmouth County.
To sum it up, its just that if Bergen County is a color, it would be grey. Monmouth County would be light blue.
That's a mighty big brush you are using to paint Bergen County gray.
There are 70 towns in Bergen Cty with around 950k people. There is more variety of everything in Bergen County vs Monmouth Cty minus the shore. In Bergen Cty there are multiple towns with 2 acre type zoning and multiple towns with city density and multiple towns with everything in between.
As for the shore - right now Long Branch is roughly an 60 minutes from Rutherford and 25 minutes from Holmdel. Not all of Monmouth Cty is at the beach.
Your hilarious depiction of Bergen Cty parents being obsessed with schools is nonsense. It ignores the fact that Monmouth Cty has some of NJ's top school systems. Maybe people just want good schools for their kids no matter where they live and not just in Bergen Cty.
The OP never felt comfortable in Teaneck and Edgewater. There are plenty of other towns in Bergen Cty that are much different than those two towns. Excluding Bergen Cty based on such a small sample is not the best way to approach purchasing a home, especially if you still need to get to NYC.
Finally, the idea that people are more friendly in Monmouth Cty vs Bergen Cty is just not based in any kind of reality. When you buy a house you either luck out that you have friendly neighbors or you don't. You will never know until you move in. It does not matter which county you move into.
That's a mighty big brush you are using to paint Bergen County gray.
There are 70 towns in Bergen Cty with around 950k people. There is more variety of everything in Bergen County vs Monmouth Cty minus the shore. In Bergen Cty there are multiple towns with 2 acre type zoning and multiple towns with city density and multiple towns with everything in between.
As for the shore - right now Long Branch is roughly an 60 minutes from Rutherford and 25 minutes from Holmdel. Not all of Monmouth Cty is at the beach.
Your hilarious depiction of Bergen Cty parents being obsessed with schools is nonsense. It ignores the fact that Monmouth Cty has some of NJ's top school systems. Maybe people just want good schools for their kids no matter where they live and not just in Bergen Cty.
The OP never felt comfortable in Teaneck and Edgewater. There are plenty of other towns in Bergen Cty that are much different than those two towns. Excluding Bergen Cty based on such a small sample is not the best way to approach purchasing a home, especially if you still need to get to NYC.
Finally, the idea that people are more friendly in Monmouth Cty vs Bergen Cty is just not based in any kind of reality. When you buy a house you either luck out that you have friendly neighbors or you don't. You will never know until you move in. It does not matter which county you move into.
It's not just Teaneck and Edgewater. I worked in Ridgewood and Paramus. I drove around Bergen County and to other towns for shopping and exploring. It's just really nothing exciting to me about Bergen County. I'm sure many people love Bergen County, but it just doesn't click for me. We drove west as well to other counties such as Passaic, Essex, Morris, Union, Somerset, and Middlesex, but none of them excites me.
Besides we have put in offers for homes in different towns in Bergen County since last year and were outbid every offer. And every time our offer was not accepted, I felt very relieved. I dread seeing myself settling down in Bergen County. It's a well-trodden path and safe for home values. But at the end of the day, I just feel like "is this all there is in life?". On the other hand, I do feel scared about Monmouth County as I don't know the area well but feel excited about being close to the ocean and could be there on a whim like masssachoicetts said.
My 20s were super hard; I gave up my life dream, did not travel a lot nor party to establish myself financially. Now that I'm a lot more stable but start to feel the impact of aging, the finiteness of life, so I really want to do something new, something for myself instead of going the safe route. Hence, I reached out here to see if there are people out there that have been in my boat and what paths they have taken.
Last edited by velvetcupcake; 02-12-2024 at 07:36 PM..
Monmouth County is closer to the beach, so you can go check out the shore points after work or on a whim. In Bergen County it is a big deal to go down the Shore, that becomes a religious trip. I find people in Monmouth County are more likely to explore outside the state and try new things as well since the Shore is part of their life. The big trips of the year for my s/o family was a week in Wildwood/Ocean City for a few thousand bucks because it was 'close to home and easy to get back to work'. Now we actually travel and they realize it is actually fun to go to Florida and Maine and Newport and NC on the whim lol.
The culture in Monmouth County NJ isnt: Get up. Commute to NYC. Work. Commute home. East dinner. Repeat. Shop. Monmouth County has a bit of variation.
Bergen County is so heavily trafficked, especially by 17/GSP/4 that you learn not to leave the house after work until 7:15 PM. On Saturdays? Forget it. Stay home lol. Monmouth County is less built up so theres more freedom/variety of stuff to do that isnt all urbanism.
Monmouth County has better parks and is better for day trips. imo. Bergen County towns start getting repetitive. Some towns are just strip malls, while other ones are really nice (Ridgewood, Westwood) but don't offer a whole lot off stuff that is affordable and cool.
People in Bergen County are obsessed with getting their kids in good schools or private schools... and they turn out the same as other kids lol. They pay so much for less, and get the same in return. I get it, I am from Massachusetts.. education is the top of the top there.. but even in MA they don't go that far for the same lol. It gives 'they are doing too much'.
Finally, the people. People are much more friendly in Monmouth County.
To sum it up, its just that if Bergen County is a color, it would be grey. Monmouth County would be light blue.
That's interesting, and would certainly color the Bergen County experience. Or color it gray, in your case I suppose.
But I do agree that those are broad strokes and don't necessarily apply to everybody.
We went down the shore for vacation. Everybody did. We also went to Florida, and Maine and California, and Canada. As adults, we travel with our kids too. It could be that people go down the shore for the convenience, or it could be that's where people go because that's what they can access. Or perhaps there's the attitude of "why go to a beach in Florida, when I have Cape May right there." But where some people only go to the Jersey shore, there are plenty of others who go to plenty of other places.
I don't disagree with you on the commuter culture. It's brutal and everybody hates it. I also don't disagree with you on the traffic, but I don't know anybody who travels on 17/GSP/4 regularly. Plenty of people know how to navigate the backroads so they only need to be on one of those monster highways for a small period of time, if at all.
As for variety of things to do, you might be surprised. Yes, we have the shopping and the urbanism. We also have great hiking up in Ramapo and on the palisades, fantastic bike trails in the county parks. We're just about 45 - 70 minutes away from skiing or a shore point. There is community theater and entertainment in Bergen PAC, and access to sports in East Rutherford and Harrison (although I think that's Hudson). You can access watersports on the hudson river and on the lakes. There's great dining options for all price points: A restaurant in Englewood just got written up as one of the best in the country, the River Palm can hold its own against any NYC steakhouse, and you can find great cheap eats all over the county and right over the border in lower Rockland. Geez, I sound like an ad for Bergen County. I will admit I don't do all of that. It's easy for the "work all week and shop on Saturday" culture to take over, but the access to these other items IS there if people want them.
Yes, we are obsessed with schools and college. We are not just keeping up with the Joneses, but beating the Joneses and the Smiths and the Johnsons when it comes to schools and college. But I bet you'll find that culture all over the state. You're going to tell me that Princeton and Summit and Chatham and Millburn and Westfield don't have that "anything to give my 4 year old a leg up" insanity? I'd argue that the school and college obsession is more socio-economic driven than county specific. If you are smart about it, you won't go tens of thousands of dollars into debt just to have a name on that allegedly prestigious degree that few people will care about after that first job (grad school is a different discussion).
Here's the interesting thing. Despite all of what I wrote above, I don't disagree that Bergen County feels just typical suburban. Kind of gray. Monotonous. I'd love to live closer to the shore. I'm a firm believer in the shore daytrip. I've been doing it since I was a kid with my parents, with friends once we got the freedom of the drivers license and into adulthood, and now with my own kids. Life down the shore, whether I'm at Seven President's, Point Pleasant, Wildwood or Cape May, just makes me happy. I may just be an hour away, which is pretty fortunate considering other areas of the country, but to be able to get to the beach right after work to toss a football around or go for a walk sounds like heaven to me. So yes, there's more to Bergen County than shopping and the NY slog, but you will always have that leg up on that one thing that we just can't access in the same way. At least in my book.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your insights there, it's an interesting discussion!
It's not just Teaneck and Edgewater. I worked in Ridgewood and Paramus. I drove around Bergen County and to other towns for shopping and exploring. It's just really nothing exciting to me about Bergen County. I'm sure many people love Bergen County, but it just doesn't click for me. We drove west as well to other counties such as Passaic, Essex, Morris, Union, Somerset, and Middlesex, but none of them excites me.
Besides we have put in offers for homes in different towns in Bergen County since last year and were outbid every offer. And every time our offer was not accepted, I felt very relieved. I dread seeing myself settling down in Bergen County. It's a well-trodden path and safe for home values. But at the end of the day, I just feel like "is this all there is in life?". On the other hand, I do feel scared about Monmouth County as I don't know the area well but feel excited about being close to the ocean and could be there on a whim like masssachoicetts said.
My 20s were super hard; I gave up my life dream, did not travel a lot nor party to establish myself financially. Now that I'm a lot more stable but start to feel the impact of aging, the finiteness of life, so I really want to do something new, something for myself instead of going the safe route. Hence, I reached out here to see if there are people out there that have been in my boat and what paths they have taken.
Thanks for the update. Good luck with your house hunt.
That's a mighty big brush you are using to paint Bergen County gray.
There are 70 towns in Bergen Cty with around 950k people. There is more variety of everything in Bergen County vs Monmouth Cty minus the shore. In Bergen Cty there are multiple towns with 2 acre type zoning and multiple towns with city density and multiple towns with everything in between.
As for the shore - right now Long Branch is roughly an 60 minutes from Rutherford and 25 minutes from Holmdel. Not all of Monmouth Cty is at the beach.
Your hilarious depiction of Bergen Cty parents being obsessed with schools is nonsense. It ignores the fact that Monmouth Cty has some of NJ's top school systems. Maybe people just want good schools for their kids no matter where they live and not just in Bergen Cty.
The OP never felt comfortable in Teaneck and Edgewater. There are plenty of other towns in Bergen Cty that are much different than those two towns. Excluding Bergen Cty based on such a small sample is not the best way to approach purchasing a home, especially if you still need to get to NYC.
Finally, the idea that people are more friendly in Monmouth Cty vs Bergen Cty is just not based in any kind of reality. When you buy a house you either luck out that you have friendly neighbors or you don't. You will never know until you move in. It does not matter which county you move into.
Your post doesnt make much sense because you in correctly quoted the OP.
On threads, you have to paint in broad brushes unless someone asks for something more specific. OP and I got carried away because we both agreed on the same thing and were highlighting our own experiences. Feel free to place yours in a more respectful manner
And very aware, I quite literally run a TikTok focused on New Jersey with a couple hundred thousand followers. I have extensively been to almost every town in Bergen County and about half in Monmouth County. I get paid to explore towns. Bergen County has nice towns but its very grey, especially when we compare them to Monmouth County.
That's interesting, and would certainly color the Bergen County experience. Or color it gray, in your case I suppose.
But I do agree that those are broad strokes and don't necessarily apply to everybody.
We went down the shore for vacation. Everybody did. We also went to Florida, and Maine and California, and Canada. As adults, we travel with our kids too. It could be that people go down the shore for the convenience, or it could be that's where people go because that's what they can access. Or perhaps there's the attitude of "why go to a beach in Florida, when I have Cape May right there." But where some people only go to the Jersey shore, there are plenty of others who go to plenty of other places.
I don't disagree with you on the commuter culture. It's brutal and everybody hates it. I also don't disagree with you on the traffic, but I don't know anybody who travels on 17/GSP/4 regularly. Plenty of people know how to navigate the backroads so they only need to be on one of those monster highways for a small period of time, if at all.
As for variety of things to do, you might be surprised. Yes, we have the shopping and the urbanism. We also have great hiking up in Ramapo and on the palisades, fantastic bike trails in the county parks. We're just about 45 - 70 minutes away from skiing or a shore point. There is community theater and entertainment in Bergen PAC, and access to sports in East Rutherford and Harrison (although I think that's Hudson). You can access watersports on the hudson river and on the lakes. There's great dining options for all price points: A restaurant in Englewood just got written up as one of the best in the country, the River Palm can hold its own against any NYC steakhouse, and you can find great cheap eats all over the county and right over the border in lower Rockland. Geez, I sound like an ad for Bergen County. I will admit I don't do all of that. It's easy for the "work all week and shop on Saturday" culture to take over, but the access to these other items IS there if people want them.
Yes, we are obsessed with schools and college. We are not just keeping up with the Joneses, but beating the Joneses and the Smiths and the Johnsons when it comes to schools and college. But I bet you'll find that culture all over the state. You're going to tell me that Princeton and Summit and Chatham and Millburn and Westfield don't have that "anything to give my 4 year old a leg up" insanity? I'd argue that the school and college obsession is more socio-economic driven than county specific. If you are smart about it, you won't go tens of thousands of dollars into debt just to have a name on that allegedly prestigious degree that few people will care about after that first job (grad school is a different discussion).
Here's the interesting thing. Despite all of what I wrote above, I don't disagree that Bergen County feels just typical suburban. Kind of gray. Monotonous. I'd love to live closer to the shore. I'm a firm believer in the shore daytrip. I've been doing it since I was a kid with my parents, with friends once we got the freedom of the drivers license and into adulthood, and now with my own kids. Life down the shore, whether I'm at Seven President's, Point Pleasant, Wildwood or Cape May, just makes me happy. I may just be an hour away, which is pretty fortunate considering other areas of the country, but to be able to get to the beach right after work to toss a football around or go for a walk sounds like heaven to me. So yes, there's more to Bergen County than shopping and the NY slog, but you will always have that leg up on that one thing that we just can't access in the same way. At least in my book.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your insights there, it's an interesting discussion!
Thanks for a respectful response. And I absolutely agree.
My more gray comparison comes from comparing Bergen County to Monmouth County. Monmouth to me, and OP, are the clear winners. I tried to paint a broad brush on the whole county so I wasnt typing for four or five hours haha
Bergen County is a status thing. People pay top dollar to live there just to say they live in Bergen County. It never did seem all that appealing though as having lived primarily in the southern portion of it near the Meadowlands, it was always very very congested and overdeveloped with very little that was actually pleasing to the eye. Not to mention how confusing the roads are and how easy it is to get lost. One wrong turn and you will be lost for an hour. Seriously. And the abundance of missing road signs don't help either.
Monmouth County likes to think it's the same way and while it might have some more nice things about it that are at least visually appealing, it is by and large these days a characterless place full of displaced Staten Islanders who are too misinformed by realtors about how to find a good suburb and of course now have a horrendous commute to deal with. It has attraced some very awful people over the years, the type who leave their little Staten Island shack for a McMansion in this area and suddenly their crap no longer stinks. And you have the (mostly shore) locals who are fed up with this too and for that reason remain extrmely cliquey and dislike anyone that is not from the area though this holds true for any town on the entire Jersey Shore, coining derogatory terms like BENNY or Shoobie for non-locals. And the traffic, don't think it's any less congested than Bergen, all those narrow country roads clog up fast. It will take you a month to drive a few miles with the amount of cycles it takes to get through a traffic light.
I no longer live in NJ, but I would never voluntarily live in either area. So you can say I don't have a dog in this hunt. Pick your poison.
Bergen County is a status thing. People pay top dollar to live there just to say they live in Bergen County. It never did seem all that appealing though as having lived primarily in the southern portion of it near the Meadowlands, it was always very very congested and overdeveloped with very little that was actually pleasing to the eye. Not to mention how confusing the roads are and how easy it is to get lost. One wrong turn and you will be lost for an hour. Seriously. And the abundance of missing road signs don't help either.
Monmouth County likes to think it's the same way and while it might have some more nice things about it that are at least visually appealing, it is by and large these days a characterless place full of displaced Staten Islanders who are too misinformed by realtors about how to find a good suburb and of course now have a horrendous commute to deal with. It has attraced some very awful people over the years, the type who leave their little Staten Island shack for a McMansion in this area and suddenly their crap no longer stinks. And you have the (mostly shore) locals who are fed up with this too and for that reason remain extrmely cliquey and dislike anyone that is not from the area though this holds true for any town on the entire Jersey Shore, coining derogatory terms like BENNY or Shoobie for non-locals. And the traffic, don't think it's any less congested than Bergen, all those narrow country roads clog up fast. It will take you a month to drive a few miles with the amount of cycles it takes to get through a traffic light.
I no longer live in NJ, but I would never voluntarily live in either area. So you can say I don't have a dog in this hunt. Pick your poison.
Do people believe Bergen County really is a status? Sure there are some nice towns and that may have true back in 1975 but many towns are overbuilt, small lots, heavy traffic and the laundry list of other complaints.
Morris and Hunterdon counties are in the top 10 wealthiest counties in all of America and by all standards are much more desirable and prestigious places to live.
Monmouth is certainly most up and coming as you can see by their housing prices moving up quickly more than most other places. Monmouth does have some wealthy parts, McMansion developments but also is more blue collar, and has its mix of bad towns. You are right though, if you're not living at the beach, it's heavy traffic and a long drive in the summer to get to one of the better beaches which are farther south. Ideally, if you didn't have the leash of having to be by a train you would want to live in Ocean County for the beach.
Last edited by DannyHobkins; 02-17-2024 at 01:50 AM..
1)My family used to travel to Ocean City/Wildwood for vacation because they wanted an affordable vacation verses going to Florida for a week in the summer. In a post-covid world, a week at the Jersey Shore now costs more than a week at Disney or a week in Europe now.
2)I can imagine the only reason people live in Bergen county, is that their family lives there or they have to work in Bergen County. It was a fantastic place to live back in the 50, 60 and 70s (maybe part 80s) but it was overdeveloped and immigration happened. I dislike the whole family excuse, because people say they don't want to live there but their parents are there and its a cyclical issue.
1) Your assumption about the New Jersey Shore is incorrect.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
