The Blue Moon Mexican Cafe is one of the most popular local restaurant chains in Bergen County.  With 3 locations – Englewood, Woodcliff Lake and Wyckoff – no matter where you are in Bergen County, you’re near a Blue Moon restaurant.  This Tuesday 20% of all dinner bills is being donated to the Tenafly Nature Center for food ordered from 11 am through 9 pm.  You must bring a donation flyer with you and give it to your waiter.

So come out on Tuesday and have a 2nd Cinco De Mayo at a Blue Moon Mexican Cafe and support the Tenafly Nature Center.  Maybe I’ll see you there!

I’ll bet you didnt know that you can go to the woods and get your own maple sugar from a tree right here in Tenafly!  Well, it is true – the Tenafly Nature Center will show you how to do this, right here at home, for the next two Sundays.  On March 4 and March 11, you and your children can learn how sap is gathered today, and check tapped trees.  Then, you’ll boil down the fresh maple syrup for a warm sweet treat!

Yes, you can do this in Tenafly.  So close to New York City, and yet the wonders of nature abound here.

The Tenafly Nature Center is a wonderful resource in our community.  Located at 313 Hudson Avenue, the center is close to everything, and yet seems far removed, its own nature world.  Its wonderful to have such a rich resource near us.  Maple sugaring isnt the only thing you can do there.  Take guided nature hikes for children and adults, attend children’s nature story times, or find out about opportunities to sail along the Palisade!  Whether you are an adult or a child, you will find there is something for you here.

Tenafly is a beautiful place to live and to play.  Not only do we have a great schools system, beautiful homes, and proximity to New York City, we live in a beautiful place with many natural wonders to appreciate and explore.

Check out maple sugaring at the Tenafly Nature Center, March 4 and 11, 12:30-1:30 and 2:00-3:00.  While you are there, find out about Spring Break Camp in April, and an Easter time “Eggs Bunnidict” celebration of rabbit trails and hidden candy eggs.

In almost every location, the luxury home market has improved dramatically and this is especially true east of Route 17 which are closer to New York City.  While I’ve never seen any data to explain this, I have felt that being on top of the George Washington Bridge is a major factor for high end home buyers who are in positions where they may not stay for extended periods of time such as Fortune 500 CEO’s, senior level diplomats, celebrities and athletes and who must be within 15 minutes of the George Washington Bridge.

Let’s take a look at our luxury home market in Bergen County beginning with Alpine New Jersey.   Alpine made tremendous progress in 2011.  Alpine homes nearly tripled the number of sales in 2011 going from 4 to 11.  Smart home buyers looked at Alpine homes as a tremendous opportunity.  I remember one buyer saying to me that he never thought he could buy a good home in Alpine at $2-2.5 million.

Saddle River  had a solid performance this year with one more sale going from 19 to 20 closings.  Saddle River homes certainly appear to have stabilized and the average sales price of a Saddle River home is up by 10%.  Alpine and Saddle River are the 2 most exclusive Bergen County luxury home markets.

Franklin Lakes is still having a tough time though; Franklin Lakes homes went from 50 to 38 sales and average pricing is down by 3% but there’s good news here too for Franklin Lakes homes – home buyers paid a higher percentage of the asking price in 2011 and the time it took to sell a Franklin Lakes home dropped dramatically from 126 to 92 days.  I bet you’ll see a great improvement in Franklin Lakes homes by year’s end and certainly in 2012.

Tenafly homes at the luxury home level more than tripled the number of sales going from 2 to 7.  While the average sales price was lower, this does not tell the reality of the Tenafly luxury home market.  The 2 sales in 2010 were new construction; the 7 sales in 2011 were from a broad palette of new and resale Tenafly homes.  Tenafly real estate at the high end did extremely well so far in 2011.

The bottom line on all of this is that the real estate market for Bergen County luxury homes is either stabilized or doing very well indeed and that’s good news for all of us.

 Held each year at the Roosevelt Commons, Tenafly has a townwide Independence Day Celebration featuring all sorts of booths sponsored by local groups and businesses, rides for the children, food and prizes.  From 10 am to 3 pm bring your family to Roosevelt Commons for a day of fun where you’ll meet neighbors and friends alike.  Even if you don’t own a Tenafly home and are just in the area, feel free to drop in.

Later that night there will be fireworks.  Come behind the high school to watch – it starts about 9 pm give or take.  There’s a rain date too on the 3rd.  So if you own a Tenafly home and want to celebrate the 4th in town, you better come on the 2nd!

You can also say he’s dedicated to his 2 dogs who go everywhere with him.  Riding along in his lime green Porsche, Mayor Rustin’s dogs go everywhere he goes and even up the Tenafly Borough Hall steps into his office when he goes to work at his desk.  It’s no wonder that under Mayor Rustin’s stewardship that Tenafly is exploring the posibility of a dog park.   If you own a Tenafly home and have always wanted a local dog park in town, this is good news indeed. 

The Tenafly Borough Council has approved the formation of a committee to create a plan for a dog park in town which they will present to the Borough Council.  Stay tuned – it sure looks like a dog park is coming to town!  If you want to participate, you can email the Mayor at prustin@tenafly.net  Having a dog park in town is certainly going to be another positive for Tenafly homes and their 4 legged friends.

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!

Since then, getting a bank to loan on new construction in Bergen County has been difficult if not impossible.  But there has been one bank that’s kept its new construction loan department open – TD Bank.  In addition to TD Bank, Wells Fargo and Provident Bank of New Jersey also do new home financing.

I called TD Bank this week to review financing for a new 3 lot subdivision in Ho-Ho-Kus that I’m working on with Beverly Mitchell in my office; the interest rate quoted was very attractive – only just over prevailing mortgage rates with no points.

Each Ho-Ho-Kus lot is around 1 acre and we have packages for buyers at $1.5-1.7 million with architect plans for gorgeous 5,800 sq ft houses and a master builder in place.

If you drive up the Tenafly East Hill, you’ll be amazed at all the new houses being built there.  Tenafly has always enjoyed a strong demand for luxury new construction on it’s East Hill acre lots.  Buying a new Tenafly home is no problem for qualified buyers today.

Whether you’re building a new home in Tenafly, Ho-Ho-Kus or anywhere in Bergen County, you can get a mortgage as long as you’re qualified.

Today Tenafly has over 400 acres of municipal parks and open space.  Preserving natural woodland is so important here that in 1972 a 4 year campaign was begun to save 194 acres on the East Hill from development.  Along with grant money were hundreds of donations from individual Tenafly residents. 

Today that 194 acre purchase is part of the total 330 acre Lost Brook Preserve that so many Tenafly residents enjoy bordering on the 52 acre Tenafly Nature Center for a spectacular nature preserve.

Following Tenafly’s tradition of preserving woodland and trees, the Tenafly Public Works Department is hosting a free tree planting this spring.  Every Tenafly homeowner can call 201-568-4134 to be put on the list of homes that will be checked out to see if there is enough room in the borough right of way to plant a tree. If there is, the Public Works Department will come back in the spring and plant a tree there for free.

When you buy a Tenafly home, you’re buying more than Tenafly real estate.  You’re buying the Tenafly lifestyle and a big part of that is respect for trees and nature.

The truth is that real estate here pretty much stabilized and is poised to move forward in 2011.  Let’s check out a few towns to see how we’re doing on a local level:

Tenafly did very well.  Sales units in Tenafly were down by 8% but the average sold price rose 4%.  Teaneck also turned in a strong performance – units were down 14% and average sales prices were up 8%.  On paper Dumont didn’t do as well with 6% less sales and a 6% drop in the average sales price but a good number of short sales were to blame.  Cresskill has a large inventory of luxury homes so I kept it to $1 million sales.  Through $1 million, Cresskill had 19% fewer units at only 1% less in the average sales price. 

Bergen County beat the ”prevailing wisdom” because of our proximity to Manhattan, excellent schools, good commuting and diverse economy.  While Wall Street and the financial markets do employ many of us, there’s more to the Bergen County job picture than stocks, bonds and trades.  We have 4 major hospital centers in Englewood, Hackensack, Ridgewood and Teaneck employing large staffs of doctors, nurses and all sorts of support systems.  Bergen County is the most populous county in New Jersey and one of the largest in the US with over 900,000 residents. 

With all these advantages, it’s no wonder that things are better here.