A real estate tip has been going around the soccer field sidelines of Park Slope: If you’re having a second child, or just want more space, head for Maplewood, N.J., or its surrounding communities. Transplants report back that their new home is a suburban version of Park Slope, retaining its diversity and social life without most of its headaches. So many people are making the move that it seems like there is a direct link from Brooklyn to the ‘burb.
Now there is one, of sorts. Kathy Kulik and Elaine Pardalos, two New Jersey brokers of firm Rhodes Van Note, recently posted a notice of a “Morning in Montclair” limo tour that will pick up six to eight Park Slopers, whisk them to Montclair and the surrounding area, and give them lunch. (The limo will bring back everyone just in time to pick up kids from school.) There have already been several inquiries about the November tour, said Pardalos, who plans to organize another circuit from Manhattan in December.
While it is common for brokers to give individual tours of the Montclair area in their cars, picking up groups in the city seems to be a first. In a similar effort to attract Brooklynites, several New Jersey brokers are increasing their postings on ParkSlopeParents.com, a listserv read by thousands of Park Slope residents.
Ex-Park Slopers who leave to get more space are not looking for a big change. “They want everything they had in Park Slope: the diversity, the restaurants at walking distance, a downtown feeling,” said Kulik, a real estate broker who has been living in Glen Ridge for 25 years.
For many years, Judie Hurtado, a freelance writer and native New Yorker, did not think moving to New Jersey was an option. She lived with her husband and daughter in a two-bedroom in Windsor Terrace, steps from Park Slope’s cute restaurants and stores. However, the couple knew they wanted a second child, and their Brooklyn apartment had toys scattered everywhere. So three years ago, they moved to Maplewood,
a 30-minute train ride from Penn Station. Although Hurtado says she left the city “kicking and screaming,” she found the transition easier than she had thought.
“We loved Maplewood because it didn’t feel like New Jersey,” she said. “It is a very diverse area, much like Park Slope. There are moms groups, dads groups, gay and lesbian families, families of color, adoptive families; you name it, we probably have it.”
After three years, Hurtado still misses Brooklyn. But her friends who stayed in Park Slope live in two-bedrooms, paying just as much as she does for a four-bedroom four-story house.
For Park Slopers looking for good schools, diversity and an easy commute, Montclair, N.J., has been a top destination for years. But more recently, families in search of cheaper properties have started looking at neighboring towns in Essex County, such as Maplewood-South Orange, West Orange, Bloomfield, Glen Ridge and Verona.
“At some point in Montclair, the bidding wars were staggering, and people asked, ‘Where else should I go?’ Five to six years ago, a cascade of buyers who could not afford Montclair started looking in Maplewood. It is now referred to as the little Montclair,” said Roberta Baldwin, a real estate broker at RE/MAX and former Brooklynite who fell in love with Montclair 20 years ago.
Like many other professionals in the Montclair real estate business, Sloan Berman of Burgdorff Realtors is a former Park Slope resident who advertises her services on the Park Slope Parents listserv. “We have old Colonial and Victorian homes, mature trees, parks, great museums. It is an easy transition,” Berman said.
With its European town feel, Montclair is still the main draw, but prices there have more than doubled in the past 10 years, and the average selling price for a house is now around $700,000. However, that is still much lower than Park Slope prices, where one-family townhouses sold for $2 million on average in 2006.
In Bloomfield, Verona or Maplewood, it is possible to find a house between $400,000 and $550,000. However, in prime areas of Maplewood, where schools and trains are at a walking distance, bidding wars can be tough. When Hurtado and her husband found the perfect house in Maplewood three years ago, they had to compete with 11 other bidders and ended up paying more than $500,000, which was well over the asking price.
In West Orange, which Baldwin calls the area’s “biggest secret,” families can get a great colonial for $450,000 to $550,000. There, Kulik recently sold a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a small yard for $420,000. The downside is that the town has no train station and no real center, although there are plans for a downtown revitalization to start next year.
Another selling point is the area’s reputation for being welcoming to gay couples. Amy Halperin and her partner moved from Park Slope to Maplewood two and a half years ago. “The gay-friendly atmosphere was the major reason we moved, since we have a child,” Halperin said. At the local preschool, there are several two-mom and two-dad families.
Halperin, who is an artist, said that property taxes are very high, but that it still
ends up being cheaper than private school in Brooklyn. She lives a block away from
the Tuscan school, one of the highest-rated elementary schools in the area. The average property tax is $6,531 a year in Essex County, which is about twice the national average. For a $600,000 house in Montclair or Maplewood, taxes are approximately $10,000 a year. “We love our home and hope we are not forced out because of the taxes,” Halperin said. “We may eventually size down in Maplewood if necessary.”
Many transplants say they miss the restaurants and shops of Brooklyn, but these New Jersey towns are slowly becoming more vibrant. It is especially true for Montclair, which has around 50 restaurants. And once they have moved to the suburbs, many Park Slopers feel relief at leaving the maddening realities of city life (such as alternate-side parking) behind.
Stacey Cermak, a clinical social worker who moved to Montclair from Prospect Heights two years ago with her husband, daughter and dog, has been pleased with the change. She paid $550,000 for a 1925 colonial with a yard that is walking distance from the train to New York, restaurants, shops and a good elementary school. “When we look back at our cramped, intense, irritable way of life in Brooklyn,” Cermak wrote in an e-mail, “we breathe a sigh of relief and say, ‘What took us so long?'”