Parsippany The 17th Best Place To Live
From the Daily Record:
Parsippany makes Money's Top 100
Parsippany is included in the Top 100 of Money magazine's annual "Best Places to Live" list.
The magazine named Fort Collins is the "Best Place to Live" in America for 2006, in a list that also included five New Jersey cities.
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Five Garden State cities were also listed in the top 100: Parsippany, Cherry Hill, Edison, Middletownand Wayne.
New Brunswick was also ranked second on a separate listing of cities with the most singles and, with a median age of 24.6, the city also came in third in a ranking of cities with the youngest populations.
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Cities are ranked on a series of factors, including cost of living, employment markets, median income, property taxes and housing prices. Crime, congestion, public schools and climate also go into the mix, executive editor Craig Matters said.
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The annual "best places to live" feature has appeared in Money for many years, Matters said. Last year the magazine focused on prime suburban areas. The rankings and associated data available online proved so popular editors decided to expand to small cities.
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National attention doesn't necessarily attract more people or businesses to those communities, Matters said.
"We are not a leading indicator, we are following," he said. "People already know these are great places to live."
17 Comments:
Do you notice how the list changes from year to year. Yet do things change in these towns that rapidly? The methodology for this list is suspect.
A NJ realtor comments on the current market:
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Friday, July 14, 2006
How are you going to make your house stand out in this buyer's market?
Hope you're enjoying this S-L-O-W summer real estate market. It feels like the whole market is overpriced right now, and when something IS priced right & shows well, it really stands out ... so if you're selling, its wise to NOT base your price on homes that have already sold like everyone else is doing. Interest rates & supply of homes are up, so how are you going to make YOUR house stand out in this market? Pricing, staging, marketing & followup systems are all key in a market where things don't happen instantly.
Fortunately, I've been lucky though. I closed a record breaking $7,480,000 in real estate the past 2 weeks!
http://sueadler.blogspot.com/
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How does skimming off $7.5M of others' wealth and hard work look?
$448,800 @ 6% commission
$374,000 @ 5%
$299,200 @ 4%
$224,400 @ 3%
In two weeks. It's time to take these "money-grubbing" (as Bob would say) middle-men out of the equation.
How many hours does it take to sell five houses? 100? Does anyone else here make $2,000 to $4,000 an hour?
x-underwriter,
I am with you. But it is actually an agglomeration of towns in the area that are lumped in with the town when money does its top 100 list. Last year Hackettstown was in the 79 (I think) this year it is not even on the list.
Are they kidding? Wasn't this the list Chatham was on last year? Parisippany can't compare to most places in Morris County or throughout the state for that matter. No offense to anyone, but isn't Parsippany primarily blue collar? And Edison? What are these people smoking?
You've heard me rail against Money Magazine in the past.
Look at these results, and now extrapolate your reaction to finance and investing, and you can better understand why I am revulsed by what they publish.
Wasn't Moorestown NJ #1 last year? Are you not allowed to make the list twice?
Publicity hounds and excuse for circulation = McMagazine
MaryanneNJ,
That is exactly why Parsippany is in the list - the fact that it is blue collar (or more precisely, has some large blue collar sections). It is still possible to buy a detached SFD in Parsippany for around $350K (not a large section though). For about $500K, you get a house with a 0.33 acre lot. Many parks and very good transportation. Property taxes are some of the lowest in Northern NJ (more because of the office buildings, not so much because the town spends any less). Finally, if you look through dice or monster, you will find more job listings in Parsippany alone than in many states put together.
CNS
In my earlier post, please read -
it is still possible to buy a detached SFD in Parsippany for $350K, not a large SELECTION though.
CNS
"We used a buyer side broker, and she spent 4-5 months showing us houses practically each weekend and helping us close the deal. I think the buyer side cut she got was very fair."
I have a hard time calling $2,000 to $4,000 an hour "fair" for someone who isn't performing brain surgery or curing cancer.
CNS said: It is still possible to buy a detached SFD in Parsippany for around $350K (not a large section though). For about $500K, you get a house with a 0.33 acre lot.
But who would want it? I also don't think Parsippany is on the NJ Transit line, which to me makes it very undesirable. I know there is a lot of business there, like some pharma, etc., but that doesn't make up for the school system. Still think there's much better places that could have made the list.
To answer, yes Moorestown was number #1 last year.
MaryanneNJ.
I am not arguing with you about the school system - I am merely putting forth the best value for money arguement for a large cross section of the people. If you can afford it, by all means Montville or Mountain Lakes is a better option.
Yes, it is not on NJ transit line but Boonton, Denville & Morris Plains (which are) - are within a couple of miles of Parsippany. Many commuters find it more convenient to drive to Harrison for the PATH train (Route 280 begins in Parsippany). Also, Lakeland bus stops all over.
CNS
Fortunately, I've been lucky though. I closed a record breaking $7,480,000 in real estate the past 2 weeks!
Do you think Sue Adler tells her clients that they hae a POS and they need to clean it up; otherwise, she would not take their listing? Or is Sue Adler a real blonde?
Fairness doesnt come into pay at all. Salaries are decided largely by the market, and clearly there are people who think this realtor is worth her money.
With the realtor cartel, people don't have much choice.
Having a high school grad (for example) making more than a brain surgeon for doing a job most anyone can do, because of said cartel, doesn't sit right with me.
Anyone can be a parasite and sell someone else's $5M house for a $300K commission, few can cut into someone's brain to successfully remove a tumor.
And with the Internet, all these parasite realtor middlemen will fade away soon enough.
Hopefully they will have saved their skim, for when that day comes.
space_ghost,
unrealtor & skeptic do have a point. You are making a lot of arguements based on theory. You have to know the industry up close to know how many realtors (& how often) use underhanded tactics and work against their client solely to increase their commission.
Of course, there are good realtors but there are far too few. I am sure ryming (who visits this board) is a good one.
CNS
Cartel
A combination of independent business organizations formed to regulate production, pricing, and marketing of goods by the members.
A small group of producers of a good or service who agree to regulate supply in an effort to control or manipulate prices.
If anybody didn't know, the Star Ledger has a lookup on prices and taxes, but it is not current yet for 06.
http://www.nj.com/news/housingboom/
http://tinyurl.com/kuwyz
http://www.nj.com/news/propertytaxes/
http://tinyurl.com/esc87
New Jersey's Housing Boom
"The most common measure of real estate prices is a quarterly survey published by the National Association of Realtors. But that report only breaks sales data down to the regional level -- which isn't helpful if you want to see what's happening in your own town.
Every year, The Star-Ledger analyzes home sales data from another source, the Division of Taxation inside the state's Department of Treasury. As part of its regulatory mission, this agency collects information on every real estate transaction in the state, and its annual "Useable Sales" database is available to the public through the State's Open Records Act.
Because the state uses the data to determine the market value of real estate in each New Jersey town, all home sales are classified to show whether the transaction took place under fair market conditions, or whether there was another circumstance that impacted the price -- such as a transaction among family members.
The town by town data in this report is based on these transactions -- sales of residential property that are denoted as fair-market. Other sales listed in our neighborhood search tool are tagged with a "*". For more information on this topic, see page 7 of this Treasury Dept. document.
Because of the vast quantity of raw sales data that flows through this system, there are occasionally errors -- sales of vacant land, for example, are sometimes denoted as residential sales. Since these errors are few and far between, and since there is no way of finding every error without researching each transaction individually, the Star-Ledger analysis is based on the information contained in the database -- no records have been altered.
Also, in towns that are about to undergo a tax roll revaluation, all sales that take place in the final six months of the year are marked as "unusable", even if they were conducted under fair market conditions. For this reason, the annual sales averages for every town are based on the first six months of the year only -- this method provides a better apples-to-apples comparison of the market.
However, on parts of this site that list individual transactions, all sales are included.
Please e-mail any other questions or comments about this project by clicking here."
Pat
parasite
An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.
One who lives off and flatters the rich; a sycophant.
http://dictionary.com/search?q=parasite
According to Money, I may be one of the most blessed people in the US!
I grew up (ages 3-20) in Moorestown (very good school system, if you're college bound) and I've lived in Parsippany the last 7 years!
I just hope the hype helps sell my townhouse now!
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