Parts of Bayonne near the parks are not inferior to those prime locations..
Category: loc
purely about location
home/school location: 2 things I can’t sacrifice
Each family has key constraints and hard limits to flexibilities. You see similar hard limits when you do yoga poses 🙂
Some can’t accept small space; some can’t accept old houses; some can’t accept above-avg schools.. The more things you can sacrifice (the more flexible), the stronger you are.
However, be honest.
- —- for single living
- 1) can’t accept long commute
- 2) dirty street? Bushwick standard was barely acceptable
- —- For the family
- 1) can’t sacrifice street cleanliness or safety
- can’t sacrifice freedom of selling, but this is rarely an issue.
- academically above-average schools? I feel I can accept
- commute? I choose to accept it as sacrifice for the family
- size? I feel 90% TPY size is acceptable. When kids grow up we can move.
- restrictions on renting out? I would accept very grudgingly.
- slow appreciation? perfectly acceptable. Look at my #2-1173
- —- for the school
- 1) can’t accept bad influence or poor commitment/enforcement by school
- can’t sacrifice safety but rarely an issue.
- academic standard as measured by standardized benchmarking? I don’t worry too much.
ground floor as daycare
rent a 3-4k home with big ground floor to run a small Chinese language daycare.
My family can use 2nd floor. 3rd floor can sublease out. Part of ground floor can be my storage.
Safe location, not necessarily Chinese concentration. Jersey City and Hoboken are very safe.
May need an asistant in case wife is sick.
flood zone
south-west tip of the peninsula + a few locations with insufficient drainage
not really any discount for flooding history, according to an agent. I guess it’s supply and demand
price spread ] parts@Bayonne
price level near the big (Hudson county) park? SFH around 500k perhaps. I don’t mind a 500k price since it would appreciate
I would buy or rent between this park n light rail line, hopefully close to either 34th or 45th station.
I may also rent an address close to the top school
I feel clean streets usually have big houses (… because the affluent like both.) but I need to find a smaller home in a relatively clean street, better than Juliette St.
price spread due to location? Not much diff between uptown and south Bayonne
Indicative numbers from Donna:
- Donna: sfh 400k +/-
- Donna: 2fh in good condition at least 500k — viable choice for me long term
- my own estimate: small condo: 300k
car-first nation: car-free locations preferred by25%
k_X_car_dependency
- Choice 1: small-town America, car-first design. Mobility with bike + occasional drivin
- Choice 2: big city with some public transport. More walk and bike, Higher density, Bigger downtowns than Choice 1. For (almost) every inaccessible but important place, I can often find a more accessible alternative location in a big downtown.
Which do I prefer? My preference is biased but at my age I may not be as flexible as I wish in adapting to changes.
Compared to Singapore, 90% of U.S. residents (outside NYC and including immigrants) are drivers. It seems that only the poor or the temporary visitors don’t drive. So this country has developed a great many “systems/facilities” to facilitate driving, but I feel it can still be easier to live without car.
Analogy — IDE can make your life “easy” and there are many support tools growing around an IDE, but a text editor is still far more reliable — simplicity.
Analogy — coffee is popular and there are many commercial facilities to support coffee drinkers, but the cost is much higher than water yet less healthy.
There’s a published “walk score” assigned to each location. Many people prefer walkable communities.
But how much premium am I willing to pay for car-freedom?
— https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/realestate/jersey-city-grows-up.html says
Many still do prefer the suburbs … closer-in suburbs with walkable downtowns and train lines have also seen population gains in recent years, said Mr. Evans. The counties that are bleeding residents are car-dependent exurban ones with large, detached houses, convenient to suburban office parks but not much else. “In the 1980s and 90s, jobs were suburbanizing as well, so people could live close to work,” he said. “But now many jobs have moved back to the cities.”
NY-Times: home value !! always tied to school rating
In some areas – particularly a handful of dense cities with good public transit such as the Bay area– the preference for being in the city center seems to outweigh the importance of school quality by a huge margin. Homes in central city locations are generally more valued than those farther out, and prices in the urban locations have risen far faster than in the suburbs since 2000.
Homes in the central city (SF) carry such a huge premium that buyers in suburban cities like Albany and San Ramon end up paying several hundred dollars less per square foot even though the schools are significantly better than those in San Francisco, in terms of test scores.
Some locations see price increases that are much more tied to density and proximity than school quality.
- Bridgewater-Raritan? Long train journey
- Pasipanny-troy Hills? Long train journey
- Mahwah, NJ? long train journey
- Wayne,NJ? long train journey
- three village central? long train journey
- Highland Park? long train journey
- red hook central? long train journey
Above are some of the locations mentioned in the NYTimes article below.
get used2driving b4rank`loc-preferences
k_X_car_dependency
I think driving (walkable community, car-freedom…) are among my top 3 “location-criteria” for my housing.
Close to my heart.
Once I get used to driving in x months, my view may change slightly, though I would always prefer car freedom.
Most locations, even in Bayonne, would become more convenient when you get a car. The amount of this change (in convenience) varies — in some locations it’s minimal change. I like such locations.
West Windsor^Edison valuation paradox: size
Zillow district report shows the psf price of West Windsor (top school district) only 10% higher than Edison ($250). (I thought top school district would command much higher psf price.) A south Edison home of the same size would probably cost perhaps 10-25% lower than West Windsor. Is my estimate reasonable?
System uses median listing psf, which is the most accurate statistics , better than “average” psf.
West Windsor does have much higher median home prices (about 80% higher) than south Edison. I think it’s mostly due to larger size, rather than psf price or school district.
Scarsdale is top school district. Median psf is $528 (https://www.zillow.com/scarsdale-ny-10583/home-values/), about double of Edison, but home values are 3 times. It has to be the home size.
My explanation — The working class don’t need well renovated, well maintained homes, or big homes. Therefore, in their districts, homes tend to be smaller and less maintained. Bayonne has multi-family houses with less than 1000 sqf for 2BR unit.
In many high-end locations (clean streets, parks…) there are plenty of condos showing 2/3 or half the SFH price tags. Between condo and SFH, there are also town homes.
##eg@ walkable neighborhood
k_X_car_dependency
There’s a walk score system. Apparently many people prefer walkable neighborhoods.
I much prefer walkable neighborhoods like
- white plains downtown
- water front locations like new port
- Chinatown? Not a home location
- Fort Hamilton Pkwy???????????? A bit rundown.
I like to see kids and old people walking in the community. On average, those locations tend to be safer, cleaner, lively, and feels richer.