The Bergen County Homes Blog

Does this look familiar? 

If it does, then you”re like many people who’ve bought an older, charming colonial home in Bergen County.  Along with the home (and especially if you bought it in towns with large inventories of charming colonial homes like Tenafly or Teaneck or Ridgewood) you got a red brick fireplace in the living room that you figured you’d fix in the future.  An article I read in Lowes “Creative Ideas” magazine recently showed how you can transform that old red brick quickly and affordably.   

Lowes has a special program for real estate agents which I’ve found to be a great help for my clients and myself.  Recently there was an article in “Creative Ideas” that solved this problem.  By resurfacing the existing red brick with a combination of tile and slate you create an amazing, beautiful effect immediately. 

This fireplace was an old, stained, red brick unit and then the Lowes team went to work  with a combination of tile and slate.  You can, of course, use other tile and stone materials but the change is certainly remarkable.  No structural renovations were needed to make this fireplace a modern showpiece.

If you’d like to get “Creative Ideas” you can go to http://www.Lowes.com or you can get in touch with me for the full real estate agent benefits program.  Lowes has many simple and affordable solutions to design problems for homeowners and they also have a lot of good tips for you too.

You don’t have to own a home in Tenafly to know what’s happening there – all you have to do is to go to the Borough of Tenafly website where you’ll discover that Tenafly is doing a revaluation right now.

Let’s say you’re thinking of buying a home in Englewood.  You see that many of the homes there are from the early 20th century so you’d like to know about the city’s history.  Just go to the City of Englewood website where you’ll find the Our History page that takes you from Englewood’s earliest days to the present.

The River Vale website is the place to go for local events – it’s always on their home page.   Park Ridge and Westwood does this too along with many other local communities.  You may find important changes on a town’s home page – this year Westwood began registering it’s various Recreation Department activities online; the announcement is on it’s home page right now.

Town websites are also a great help when you need a form.  For example, if you want to put up a fence on your property and you live in Cresskill, the fence permit form can be downloaded from the Cresskill Boro website Some towns like Tenafly actually have a step by step guide for you when it comes to getting a permit

Many community sites have portions of their building codes right on their websites.  Old Tappan has their entire borough code on line.

You may be amazed at how much information can be found on a town website.  If you’re thinking of buying a home or if you’re a Bergen County resident now, check out the borough website.  You’ll be glad you did.

While the real estate market in Bergen County has been recovering nicely since late last year, sales of high end homes had been one of the less robust parts of the market.  This was due in large part to mortgage financing which all but disappeared in 2008 and then was burdened with simply objectionable terms.

Jumbo loans and super jumbo loans were not only hard to get but their down payment requirements went through the roof.  If you wanted to purchase a $2 million house you had to come up with as much as a 50% down payment.  Requirements of 40-45% were standard for up to $2 million purchases.  This has now changed.

Today I can report to you that only a 20% down payment is required for $1-2 million homes and just a 25% down payment for a $2-3 million purchase.  Of course this assumes the buyer is qualified as to credit, assets, etc. 

This change bodes well for affluent buyers and the luxury home market.  With more liberal jumbo loan financing the market for high end luxury homes is now becoming more active.  According to the New Jersey MLS data, we have an 18% increase in the number of homes sold at $2 million or above for the first 4 months of this year.  Better mortgage loan terms for luxury home buyers is indeed positive for the Bergen County real estate market.

One of the truly great aspects of buying a Tenafly home is the wonderful shopping district Tenafly residents enjoy.  Although Bergen County is well known for the major shopping malls that line Route 4 and Route 17 in Hackensack and Paramus, the value of a local downtown where merchants and shopkeepers know you by first name is cherished here.

I remember how my mother took all of us children to a very special book store in Hackensack.  Womrath’s was the place where you could browse for hours until you found the perfect book.  If you needed help, Mr. Kutik and his staff would always find what you needed.  My mother would reward us with a trip to Womrath’s.  Today Mr. Kutik’s son Bob has maintained that tradition.

Bob Kutik owns and operates Womrath’s in Tenafly with that same wonderful customer service but he’s also moved into the 21st century – Womrath’s has a website, email newsletter and a page on Facebook.  It remains a treasure for Bergen County book lovers and is another reason why buying a Tenafly home brings you more than living space – it also brings you a great suburban lifestyle.

Small bookstores are rare these days but Tenafly has one of the very best in Womrath\’s.