The Bergen County Homes Blog

If you’re in Bergen County next Saturday, come to the Bergen County Zoo and enjoy a special day there – it’s the zoo’s 50th anniversary.  To celebrate, the zoo is offering free admission to all Bergen County residents from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturday August 14th.  Non residents will have a small fee.

With over 500 animals, a train, carousel, and pony rides, the zoo is a favorite spot for families.  Over 250,000 people visit the zoo annually and there are educational programs and activities all throughout the year for adults as well as children. 

During the summer the zoo has 3 live animal shows daily in the amphitheater and a unique exhibit called the Budgie Encounter.  Summer months also host Zoo Camp for children from 5 to 15.  Zoo Camp is a popular one week program that is always sold out. 

Located at the north end of Van Saun Park, the zoo is bordered by Paramus and River Edge.  However, people from every town in Bergen County come to the zoo so it doesn’t matter if you live in Tenafly, Dumont, Cresskill or River Vale - no matter where you are here, the zoo is a “must go” location and, if you can’t go to the zoo, the Bergen County Zoo will come to you.  The zoo has special programs for schools, organizations and senior living facilities too.  You can even book a birthday party at the zoo!

So come join us on the 14^th and help celebrate the Bergen County Zoological Park.

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Senior citizens get a lot of breaks in New Jersey; sometimes you don’t even have to be that senior.  Imagine my surprise when I went into the Englewood International House of Pancakes and learned that because I’d crossed the 50 year line I could get pancakes at a discount.  Frankly, being told I get a senior rate at the age of 50 was more than disconcerting!

Property taxes are a major reason why senior citizens sell their Bergen County homes.  The cost of ownership for people who are on a retirement income often becomes a burden they cannot handle.  When they bought their family home many years ago, they had a working income but without that now, it’s just too expensive even when the mortgage is paid off.

Property taxes are a big part of the problem because they often go up every year making it increasingly more dificult for senior homeowners to afford their home.  To help out, the State of New Jersey has a property tax freeze program for those seniors who qualify and the deadline to apply for this has been extended until August 2nd.

Just go to the State of New Jersey’s Property Tax Reimbursement website where you’ll find all the information.  This program, known as the Senior Freeze, stops property tax increases for those who qualify.  As in all things relating to your finances and taxes, I suggest that you contact your accountant for guidance.  You can also call your local Tax Assessor.  But one thing’s for sure – if you’re a senior citizen, you want to check this out before August!

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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.

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  Two towns in the Pascack Valley have come together as a team to offer their residents all options for summer day camp.  If you have a Hillsdale home or a River Vale home, you now have the choice of full or half day summer camp for your children.  Each town will accept the other’s children on an equal footing with their own residents which serves to share both town’s resources and fully answer’s homeowner needs.

  River Vale has a half day summer program and Hillsdale has a full day summer camp.  This is truly innovative because most homeowners are stuck with only one choice – whatever their town has to offer.  By sharing their resources, both Hillsdale and River Vale have given their families with children an unbeatable situation.  This is just another example of why our suburban lifestyle keeps  Bergen County homes  in high demand.  

  If you have a school aged child and need a summer camp placement, go to the Hillsdale website for full day and the River Vale website for half day placements.  Whether you’re looking at Hillsdale homes or River Vale homes you know you’ve got summer camp covered!

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     Trolley service was  used in Bergen County until the advent of the Automobile Age in the 50’s and 60’s which made them seem old fashioned and restrictive.  You could drive anywhere in a car at any time – not so with the trolley.  Another change was development of large scale shopping malls on Route 4 and Route 17.  The Bergen Mall and Garden State Plaza were the first major shopping malls opening in the late 50’s.  People flocked to these new malls in their cars.  Even with a great business district locally, if you owned an Englewood home, chances were that you drove to these malls.   

In the affluence of the post World War II era, the American Dream of owning a home with your own backyard and a car in the driveway took over.  Soon even public buses  linking all 70 communities in Bergen County became a thing of the past.  People went everywhere in their cars.  I remember watching trolley tracks being paved over on Broad Avenue in Leonia when I was a young girl.  Everyone was proud of how “modern” Leonia now appeared.  But, times have changed and trolley service is one of the advantages of owning an Englewood home.

Green is in which means using public transportation to commute to work, shop and dine out is  more important than ever.  People who are thinking of buying a home now use such websites as Walk Score to measure how accessible homes are to basic services. 

In December of 2008 the City of Englewood began an experiment – free trolley service to the downtown business district where an Englewood resident could connect to NJ Transit and Coach USA express buses to work.  In addition to  normal rush hours, the trolley operates until 8 pm during the work week so commuters can shop and dine downtown on their way home at night.  (Saturdays it runs from 1 to 8 pm).  Having this free service is quite an advantage if you own an Englewood home.

The trolley experiement has been a huge success and is another benefit for Englewood homes.  For more information , Englewood has a detailed brochure and a map of the trolley line .

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Bergen County has the advantage of being just a short hop across the George Washington Bridge from New York City’s attractions which include world class theater and entertainment.  But did you know that there are wonderful shows and concerts here as well? 

 The Bergen Pac (Bergen Performing Arts Center), located right in downtown Englewood, is where you will enjoy live performances – everything from the New Jersey Symphony to international stars. PAC performances have included Ray Charles, Pink Floyd, Dionne Warwick, Natalie Cole, the Beach Boys and comedians Don Rickles, Bil Cosby and Wanda Sykes just to name a few.

Begen PAC is extremely popular – world class entertainment that’s easy to get to; you don’t have to drive to Manhattan and pay the exorbitant parking fees of NYC garages.  Plus it’s so convenient for a full night out. 

Many people take advantage of the many excellent restaurants in downtown Englewood and then take in the show at Bergen PAC.  When the weather allows, Englewood has a downtown that is filled with people during the evening enjoying dinners, cappucino or just walking up and down Palisade Avenue looking at all the shops.

Bergen County also has many local theater companies including the Garage Theater Group in residence at Fairleigh Dickinson University and very popular community theater groups such as the Bergen County Players and The Player\’s Guild of Leonia. We even have our own opera company - The New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera.  

There’s another performing arts center that you can take advantage of  as well; Ramapo College has the Berrie Center for the Performing Arts.  This theater is situated on a beautiful campus and is host to quite a variety of plays, concerts, lectures.  Located in the northern end of Bergen County, it’s convenient for both northern Bergen County residents and folks from Rockland County, NY, too.  

As you can see, theater and the performing arts are very important to people in Bergen County.

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One of the special advantages of living in Bergen County, at least from my point of view, is our gas and electric service utility – Public Service Electric and Gas.  Go to their website at http://www.pseg.com where you’ll find excellent information and their terrific Worry Free Contract system.

PSE&G has very reasonably priced maintenance contracts on your gas and electric heating, air conditioning and appliances that I always recommend to my clients.  One of the best values you can find in Bergen County when you buy a house is their Worry Free Contracts and especially their gas furnace maintenance program which only costs $5.90 per month for parts and labor.  Go to their Residential Worry Free Contract Enrollment and scroll down the page toward the bottom where you can see the a la carte menu or you can use the bundled options at the top of the page.  The cost is billed monthly on your utility bill which makes this affordable service even easier to handle. 

It just makes sense, especially now that the heating season is almost here, to get yourself protected.  I always recommend to my clients who have gas furnaces in their home that they at least get this coverage.  It’s simply the best deal around at an annual cost of $70.80 for parts and labor with no deductibles. 

When you buy a home the last thing you need is an unexpected bill for a furnace repair – at $5.90 per month you’ll have peace of mind.  Trust me – it can happen any time.  Years ago I had a 3 year old furnace that stopped working – it needed a new circulator pump.  PSE&G came in a few hours and replaced it.  No problems after that and it was well worth the $5.90 bill that month!

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Begen County is filled with families and children. There are many great facilities for kids which I’ll be talking about but I also want to feature some of the pets waiting for adoption here because we have many pet facilities where you can get a great pet.

Very often after a family moves into their new home, they get a pet and that usually means a dog or a cat. Many home buyers buy a home and then get a dog because they are coming from apartments or the city where having a pet is not easy or allowed. There are so many wonderful dogs and cats in our animal shelters and here’s one who’s on the Urgent List at The Bergen County Animal Shelter which means poor Elton doesn’t have a lot of time left on this earth.

Because so many families have lost their jobs or their homes or both, the animal shelters are overwhelmed. Bergen County has a large facility but they can’t handle the inflow and euthanize animals. If you know of anyone who’s looking for a good pet, take a look at Elton.

Fostering a pet is also something that’s urgently needed and it gives you a good chance to see if you and a dog are a good match. I know of many good pet organizations in Bergen County where you can get advice, help and obedience classes so that you and your new dog can bond properly. Take a look at Elton – you’ll be glad you did.

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Getting a pet when you move into your new home is almost a ritual for many families in Bergen County.  It’s not unusual for me to learn that one of my customers has added a new dog or cat or other pet to their family once everything is unpacked.  Those of us who grew up with pets can remember how excited we were when our parents let us bring home our new pet.  It was so much fun and it taught us to be responsible – after all, a pet needs to be taken care of but oh what love they give us in return!

Bergen County has several opportunities for pet adoption.  Unfortunately, there are so many pets available these days waiting to be adopted.  Why not make your house a home by adopting a pet?

There are two animal shelters – the Bergen County Animal Shelter in Teterboro and the Ramapo Bergen Animal Refuge in Oakland.  We also have some wonderful organizations where I have met many teriffic volunteers during my time in Bergen County real estate sales.

There’s PetResQwhich is an all volunteer group based in Tenafly and having it’s first ever annual “Fur Ball” dinner dance at the Clinton Inn in Tenafly on March 27th.  We also have the Bergen County Humane Society  based in Lyndhurst  but serving the entire county.  Another great group is the New Jersey Boxer Rescue which is extremely active in Bergen County although they cover the entire state.  I’ve had personal experience with the New Jersey Boxer Rescue folks and I can’t say enough good things about them. 

If you’re ready for a new member of the family, you can certainly find one in Bergen County.  Adopt a pet from an animal shelter or one of these organizations and you’ll rescue an animal that will love you for years to come.

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The most special aspect of selling real estate in Bergen County is the people you meet.  One of the nicest people I’ve met is a lady by the name of Laura who told me today about a pet portrait promotion to help out CLAWS – CLAWS is an animal rescue group based in Closter which is in the north eastern part of Bergen County but they help animals throughout the county.  I’ve inserted their flyer below which has all the details for you. 

By the way, if you are thinking about adding a pet to your family, in addition to CLAWS there are several animal shelters in Bergen County as well as breed rescue groups where you can save a pet and have the love of an animal who, from what I’ve been told, truly understands that their new owner has rescued them.  It is an unfortunate truth that there are always many fine dogs and cats available but the good news is that you have a good choice of many wonderful pets.

If you have a dog or a cat or a turtle or a bird or any other pet, wouldn’t it be fun to have a pet portrait of them?  Not only will you be helping out CLAWS to do more animal rescue work and to maintain the pets they now have, you will have a lot of fun with the folks at Motophoto while you’re getting your pet’s 5 X 7 portrait.

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