The Bergen County Homes Blog

Isn’t the internet great?  When you are buying a home nothing seems to beat it for all the information it has.  But when it comes to knowing a town and the neighborhood, nothing replaces being there.  Still there is one place where you can get to know a community and that’s the town website. 

Town websites give you a special look into the character and services of a community.  Although not all towns have a website, most do and they are filled with information and community news.

Are you shopping for a Tenafly home?  The Tenafly Borough site has the Tenafly Memorial Day Parade schedule telling you that everyone is invited to the Tenafly Elk’s Club for refreshments after the ceremony. 

Looking for a Ridgewood home?  If you go to the Village of Ridgewood website you’ll learn that the Ridgewood flood rating is unchanged which gives it’s residents a 15% discount on insurance. 

Looking for an Englewood home?  The City of Englewood website tells you that all Englewood residents are eligible for a 20% discount card for prescriptions.  

If you’re thinking of buying a home in Cresskill the Cresskill Borough website announces that the town is having it’s Spring Festival on June 11th.

I have all the town websites for you on my site.  Click Here and choose the town you want!

The State of New Jersey had a great idea – help for homeowners who had underground oil tanks.  Whether leaking or not, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) would administer a fund to reimburse homeowners who wanted to remove, replace or remediate their underground oil tank.   Thus was born the Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Remediation, Upgrade & Closure Fund or UST Fund as it was commonly known. 

Actually the program worked very well.  Applications for funding were processed in a timely mannter; most homeowners only waited 2 months to receive their reimbursement check.  There was only one problem – the money to pay for all this was not unlimited and now the $20 million set aside for the UST Fund has been depleted.

Because funds are so low, the NJDEP is no longer taking new applications for non leaking tanks.  If you have a leaking tank , you can send in an application which will be date stamped and held until more funds are available.  Applications now awaiting approval will be processed with what money is left.  Whether or not funding will be restored by New Jersey is truly unknown.

If you own a Teaneck home, I’m sure you go to the town’s outstanding public library.  While growing up in Leonia, I spent many happy hours in the Leonia Public Library but Teaneck’s library is so much bigger that I often went there to do research for my high school reports.  Now when I’m showing Teaneck homes to customers, I  make it a point to drive them by the Teaneck Library.  Like all buildings, it needs housekeeping from time to time and now is one of those times.

Starting this Wednesday, May 18th, until June 1st the Teaneck Public LIbrary will be closed while asbestos is removed and a new HVAC system is installed.  For this period the Bergenfield Library will have Teaneck Library staff on hand to help out. 

It’s important to understand that no one should return books or anything else during this time.  No fines will be assessed.  The due date for all materials that were supposed to be returned then has been changed to June 6th.

If everyone cooperates by just holding on to the materials due to be returned from May 18th until June 1st, it will avoid chaos for the library and the librarians.  So if you’re looking for your favorite librarian from May 18th until June 1st, you might find her or him at the Bergenfield Library.

For the full announcement on the library closing, clck here for the Teaneck Public Library website.  Just remember – if you have a Teaneck home and want to visit your local library from Wednesday until June 1st, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

If you own a home in Cresskill you’ll be very happy to hear that the Cresskill real estate market is brisk so far this year.  No matter how you slice it, more homes have sold this year through April than they did last year.  Town wide we have 24 sales this year with 19 in 2010.

Because Cresskill has a significant number of high end homes, it’s a good idea to look at the statistics through $1 million because that really is the bulk of the market in town but the results are the same – more sales in 2011 than we had in 2010.  The time it takes to sell these homes is a little quicker than in 2010 but for the $1 million + market, homes are selling much faster this year.

The median price is up too – 17% more for the under million dollars Cresskill homes and 21% more for sales at over $1 million.  Using average sales prices the results are the same – it’s all good.  There is no doubt about it – the market for a Cresskill home is much better this year with more sales, better time on market figures and higher median prices.

So the bottom line is that Cresskill homes are selling and selling well in 2011.

Haworth NJ is a wonderful town.  Small with less than 3,500 residents, it’s also gorgeous with street after street of magnificent towering trees and mature plantings that give it a beautiful, idyllic charm.  Because of it’s special ambience and great schools, Haworth homes are in high demand.  For such a tiny town, Haworth has some amazing services and chief among them is the Haworth Swim Club.

The Haworth Swim Club has 2 large pools (heated and unheated), a kiddie pool for the little ones, refreshment stand and picnic facilities too.  If you get tired of swimming, you can play basketball, ping pong, volleyball or board games. 

What’s so nice about the Haworth Swim Club is that it truly is a town facilitiy.  People form long term friendships while watching their children swim in the pool.  Open to both residents and non-residents (who are charged only $100 more), many members come back for decades where they meet old friends and make new ones.

If you own a Haworth home you’re bound to join the swim club where you really become part of the community.  Since the Haworth Swim Club opened in 1952 it’s been a large part of the fun of owning a Haworth home.  But you better join now – rates go up on May 28th!  Just click here for the application.

While I know that many news reports are filled with gloom and doom, Bergen County real estate is following a more positive path according to New Jersey MLS data:

Through April comparing this year to last year  for single family homes, there are 8% fewer closings, barely 1% less in the average sales price and  only 9  more days of marketing time.  While the number of closings were up  in February, March and April had less but it’s not like we fell off a cliff - down 19% in March and 16% in April. 

OK, why isn’t this troubling?  Because last year to take advantage of the tax credit you had to be in contract by April 30th and closed out by June 30th.  One would think that the artificially high number of closings from the Homebuyer Tax Credit (which overheated the market for the first 4 months last year) would result in much worse 2011 figures. 

Let’s see how things look at the end of May.  I’ll be back to you on this then but for now it sure doesn’t look like the market has jumped off any cliffs this year.

If you know me then you’ll know that pets and animal rescue are important to me.  You’ll also know that I got started with animal rescue through the abused boxer puppy my son saved and everything we went through with her.  Our nearly 18 month adventure with my fabulous vet, Dr. Harriet Lederman, turned this terribly sick little puppy into a vibrant boxer filled with all the fun and mischief of it’s breed and led me to New Jersey Boxer Rescue who found Samantha the home she needed.

One of my best friends, Laura Latrenta, who’s a fellow associate at our Weichert Realtors Tenafly Office, is also involved in animal rescue.  Laura told me about the Start II Animal Rescue dinner coming up this Thursday – she’s working on getting people to come.  It’s their biggest fund raiser of the year so please join us - there’s room for more!  All the information you need is on the flyer below:

In order to keep on top of what’s happening in the 70 municipalities in Bergen County I sign up for email notices from their online services.  One of those is the River Vale Police Department.  If you own a River Vale home you really should make sure you get the notices that your police department regularly emails.  I have found these to be so useful to anyone and essential if you live in River Vale.

Let’s take the latest email alert I received from the River Vale Police.  It arrived the other day in my email inbox and was a warning to River Vale residents about social networking.  In the message was a story about Nashua New Hampshire where a resident had been robbed of over $200,000 worth of personal items because they had told everyone through social networking that they were going on a vacation.

The River Vale Police Department was warning town residents that if you are planning a trip, don’t broadcast your plans through your social network presence because thieves watch for exactly that and rob houses based on such postings.  I never fail to be impressed with the constant stream of very valuable information that River Vale residents get from their police department.  So if you own a River Vale home, be sure to sign up for the River Vale Police Deparment email alerts.  You can reach the RV Police at 201-264-1111.

One of the agents in my office had an interesting experience in Englewood today.  She was inspecting an Englewood home with her customer and nearly came eye to eye with a raccoon in the attic.  Needless to say this presented a problem when trying to show the house to her buyer and I have no doubt that both real estate agent and home buyer left that Englewood home pretty quickly.

Attics seem to be favorite hiding places for raccoons and squirrels too.  One way to protect your home from a squirrel or raccoon invasion is to make sure you have a chimney cap on your chimney.  A quick Google search came up with this Draft King Chimney Cap picture:

As you can see, this is a really pretty simple item but it sure does the job.  It’s also important to periodically check where your roof meets the house structure itself.  Sometimes a squirrel will bite through the facia board just under the roof and get inside the attic.  When you’re having your gutters cleaned out it’s a good idea to check around for any signs of a raccoon or squirrel trying to bite their way into your home.

Towns like Englewood, Tenafly and Ridgewood have so many beautiful, mature trees that tower over the homes there but these gorgeous trees also have branches that make it so easy for a raccoon or squirrel to scamper up on your roof and bite their way into your attic.  It’s best to do a regular inspection of your house so you can keep on top of the raccoons and squirrels who have decided they like your house as much as you do!

If you own a home in Cresskill NJ you’ll want to hear about this -

The Borough of Cresskill is hosting a paper shredding day on Saturday, May 14th, from 9 am to 1 pm.  This is free for all Cresskill residents whether you own a Cresskill home or are a tenant.  This free event will be held at the Cresskill High School parking lot which is located at 1 Lincoln Drive.

If you’re doing some spring cleaning and don’t know what to do with that stack of old newspapers or those checks you’ve had gathering dust in a cabinet for the past 20 years, you can bring them to the paper shredding event if you’re a Cresskill resident and have your confidential papers shredded for free.

Please remember that hardcover items are not allowed – just paper items please.  For any questions you may have, just call 201-567-2184.