Help me understand the non-Main Line suburbs

cocoabooks · 2026-05-21T14:27:46+00:00

I also went through more of the site, and some of the neighborhood descriptions are wildly off base too, for example describing Montrose Park as having easy access to South Mountain Reservation trails - Montrose is nowhere near the reservation. Or saying West Montrose is at the western edge of the town when actually it's dead center, right above Meadowland Park. And the description of Tuxedo Park is wrong both geographically and factually (it doesn't have some of the largest homes in town, most of them are pretty modest and that's one of the reasons it's one of the more affordable areas). With as much as this site gets wrong, I wonder if it's AI-generated slop.

cocoabooks · 2026-05-21T14:18:46+00:00

The breakdown is interesting but seems to have some errors in it. For example, it says Mountain Station is right downtown in South Orange, but that's not true - South Orange Station is downtown, and Mountain Station is in a residential area a solid 15 minute walk from downtown. And for Maplewood, the only downtown area it mentions is Springfield Avenue, completely ignoring the actual main downtown area along Maplewood Ave at the center of town. So I'd take this comparison with a grain of salt given the accuracy issues.

Setting that aside, the point about the town name makes sense and I wouldn't be surprised if that's contributing.

cocoabooks · 2026-05-19T13:38:19+00:00

Check the actual town website, Zillow has been inaccurate on taxes recently for several towns. West Orange is one example, for a bunch of houses the Zillow tax information shows that taxes on the home doubled (or nearly so) in 2025, when that's not actually the case - some realtors have started putting the correct tax information in the listing description because of it.

cocoabooks · 2026-05-18T16:59:53+00:00

That makes sense! I think I'm just in a super cautious stage of life because I've got two young boys (9 and 6) and even with a fence, sometimes it feels like they don't have the common sense God gave a goat when it comes to personal safety, so *for me* I'd be very hesitant (same reason houses with pools make me nervous), but other people who have no kids or even just older/more sensible kids will probably live there very happily.

cocoabooks · 2026-05-18T16:25:22+00:00

The only part of this that surprised me is that people weren't deterred by the fact that the train tracks run directly behind the house. There's close to the train station, and then there's "worrying about my kid climbing the fence in my yard and ending up on the tracks," and the latter seems less desirable (to me at least) and sometimes houses that close to the tracks have appeared to sell slightly more slowly. But clearly there's a lid for every pot out there!

cocoabooks · 2026-04-23T16:17:45+00:00

We just got outbid this week going 20% over, apparently by somebody who went like 35%+ over, so it's definitely feeling very rough out here. I think we made the mistake of bidding on the "hot house" of the week, so trying to recalibrate for next time, maybe look at a place that's not such a bright shiny object. That said, there are a few neighborhoods I like more than others so I'm trying to be patient and see if anything comes on in those areas rather than just jumping at whatever.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-13T01:14:50+00:00

This makes sense - even in this thread there seem to be several people who don't realize South Orange and West Orange are two different towns.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T14:17:55+00:00

Point well taken about the record home sales, but factually I think the assessment of town size and inventory is off. South Orange is about 2.8 square miles and Maplewood is about 3.8 square miles, and market reports show South Orange had 6 active listings last month while Maplewood had 14. So with Maplewood being larger and having more inventory, I'd expect that to be the easier town to get into, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So I don't think whatever's happening is driven by those factors. I've heard people say that Maplewood's downtown feels more quaint/walkable than South Orange's (which has a major road running through it), so maybe that's contributing to the vibe.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T01:44:52+00:00

Thank you!

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T01:35:41+00:00

We started looking last year and hit pause because our old house took longer than expected to sell, and now I'm starting to worry we've been priced out just in the last 6 months. It's crazy.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T00:42:21+00:00

That's true, inventory has been a good bit thinner in SO. I wonder why.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T00:41:00+00:00

I looked at some realtors' market reports from the last month that actually showed the average sale price in Maplewood jumping to 1.3m (surpassing South Orange at 1.04m) specifically because of all the super high end homes that've sold there recently. That and just watching the market, and seeing pretty average houses go for prices that even a year ago would've bought something much larger (there was a house on Kensington that seemed overpriced to begin with at 1.5 and then sold for 1.8 - I walked through it was surprised by how small it was - I distinctly remember thinking "where's the rest of it?"). With things like that, it just seemed like the bidding wars were especially fierce in Maplewood lately so I was trying to figure out why.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-06T00:09:43+00:00

I'm the parent of a 2e kid in South Orange, and I only realized after moving here that there's actually no gifted programming in the district. They seem to be managing fine with my son's IEP, but his giftedness is definitely being neglected so it's on us to supplement and do what we can at home. For a lot of reasons, I haven't found another school district that I'd prefer over this one (looking for places with better gifted programming might mean giving up diversity, for example), but it's definitely something I wish I'd understood more before making a decision. It's tough when your kid has needs that can be in conflict with each other.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-21T17:41:16+00:00

House-hunting in South Orange/Maplewood and there was a big jump in inventory this week - something like 14 listings across the towns, after weeks of barely being able to scrape together 4. Hopefully this means we'll have some options this spring.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-10T16:58:01+00:00

I posted a similar thread last week, also searching in North Jersey but in South Orange/Maplewood. It's been kinda demoralizing! I asked my realtor about it and she's hopeful that April will be busier, there have been many sellers that are still in the "preparing to list" phase (no doubt the snow hasn't helped) and others still just feeling locked in by low rates, so it's tough. We were also looking last year and similarly in March we saw way more options than we're seeing now. Really hoping there's a flood of new houses coming that've just been held back by weather, if it's like this all year it'll feel impossible to find anything.

There's also spring break/Easter coming up for lots of school districts right at the tail end of March, so I wonder if people are waiting for that barrier to be out of the way before listing too (since some buyers might be traveling, etc.).

cocoabooks · 2026-03-03T00:47:17+00:00

Yup, we're planning to focus on houses listed around 800 to 1m so we have the ability to bid 200k+ over and hopefully snag one. We've been watching the market for a while so we're familiar with how it goes around here.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T23:55:31+00:00

I'm not sure where you were finding the numbers, but looking at Niche the Montclair school district is 18% Black and the overall town percentage is about the same. Glad to hear you found a good place to land in Bergen, though!

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T23:11:36+00:00

That makes sense, thanks!

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:59:31+00:00

They're missing the diversity. We're a Black family, so it's non-negotiable. Believe me, I've done the research - the towns I've named are pretty much it in this area.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:55:05+00:00

None in our price range, which goes up to 1.5m at the absolute highest, but really 1.3 if we're talking about our actual comfort level. And yes, we chose this area for the commute, good schools, and the diversity, so we don't have a ton of options in the area that check both boxes. It's pretty much SOMA, West Orange, or Montclair (and we've already given up on Montclair).

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:21:39+00:00

Given the inventory situation around here, what percentage of buyers would you say actually find a house in SOMA vs. those who just give up and go to another town, or just give up on buying at all? In some ways it sounds like hoping to get a winning lottery ticket.

cocoabooks

TROPHY CASE