The Bergen County Homes Blog

What do Mahwah, Paramus, River Vale, Rockleigh and Teaneck have in common?  Each of these towns has a public golf course.  Bergen County supports 5 excellent public golf courses and has an award winning junior golf program as well.  Golf is big here and well supported by the Bergen Couny Parks Department.  

The 5 public golf courses are Darlington in Mahwah, Orchard Hills in Paramus, Overpeck in Teaneck, Rockleigh in Rockleigh and Valley Brook in River Vale.  All are 18 hole courses except Orchard Hills which is a 9 hole course.  Darlington also has a concession based driving range as well as a pro shop and snack bar.  You’ll find a clubhouse at Overpeck, Rockleigh and Valley Brook.  Course fees are very affordable as one would expect with a public golf course and facilities are truly excellent.

There’s an automated tee time reservation system where you can also reserve a golf cart.  Tournaments are scheduled from mid June to the first week of October and run from highly competitive events to golf outings that are geared to beginning players as well as seniors.

A recent addition to the Bergen County golf program is the Pioneer Program.  Begun in 1995 to introduce golf to young people from 8 through 18 years of age, the Pioneer Tour has had a major impact.  Close to 1,000 young golfers participate with more tournaments added each year.  An outstanding program, Golf Digest in 2000 awarded the Pioneer Junior Tour it’s prestigious award for being the best municipal junior golf program in the US.

So whether you buy a home in Dumont, River Vale, Tenafly or anywhere in Bergen County, there’s a golf course and a program just perfect for you.

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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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Here is a statistical report on the market for River Vale homes from 2007 through 2009.  In looking at the River Vale real estate market data from the New Jersey MLS, you’ll find that while the number of homes sold in 2009 decreased by 21% the depreciation rate was only 3%.  The most active part of the River Vale homes market, $500-650,000, had 10% fewer sales and 2% depreciation.  Fewer sales and less depreciation is the classic pattern of a recovery.

What has been the most difficult part of the market, however, is the $600-800,000 price range but I expect this to change dramatically in 2010.  All in all the market for River Vale homes is definitely improving and should be strong this year. 

 River Vale, NJ – Year to Year Comparison

  Sales Analysis              2007    2008    2009

 $0-400,000                  1          6          7                                 

$400-450,000              7          5          8         

$450-500,000              7          8          6         

$500-550,000              8          8          9

$550-600,000              12        10        11

$600-650,000              14        11        7

$650-700,000              7          8          3

$700-750,000              6          13        2

$750-800,000              7          6          2

$800-850,000              6          2          4

$850-900,000              4          0          3

$900-950,000              3          3          2

$950-1 million               3          1          3

$1-1.25 million              6          3          2

$1.25-1.5 million           3          2          2

$1.5 million+                 1          0          0

Total                             95        86        71 (-21%)

                                           2007                        2008                  2009

Avg. List Price                   $736,837                 $679,288            $657,208

Avg. Sales Price                $708,787                 $647,697           $628,437

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Whether it’s  Tenafly homes, Englewood homes, River Vale homes, Westwood homes or anywhere else in Bergen County, what’s happening in the housing market is important and always of interest.  USA Today has great interactive graphs from Moody\’s  that track 5 critical measurements of the real estate market.  What these interactive charts show is solid improvement across the board beginning with the 4th quarter of 2009!

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