best new jersey towns

Move to the forked river / toms river area. Very small area. 20 minutes away from Seaside and 15 away from LBI.

 

monmouth county is good. nj transit to NYC, still close enough to get on the highway and have a <2hr trip to go snowboard and depending on your location, you can surf the hook to deal without driving too far. people are generally pretty smart and more toward the upper class also

 

move to anywhere in monmouth county. good waves. good location. one of the best places year round i think. alot of house are for sell too

 

only prob is property taxes are pretty high...

but regardless, there is a town for every price range. PM me if you want some info, i'll gladly help out

 

depends on the town. they vary considerably ie: keansburg vs navesink

 

Monmouth county for sure... Bennys around here dont get as bad as most places. yourr close to everthything (snowboarding,nyc,surfing, and if your the shopping type, tons of stores/malls around)
*****BUT,,,, let me warn you, bodyboarders in the summer months have to go in a designated area, so most jettys dont allow bodyboarding, but still so many places to do it!

 

Red Bank is a fun town. Urban-trendy and close to the beach. Worth taking a ride and checking it out. Let me know more specifically what you are looking for. My girlfriend and I are house hunting now for after the wedding (October) so I have a pretty good idea of what's out there.

 

I would recommend Wall Township. It's not far from the ocean, parts of it are on the shark river inlet so you can live inland but still have a nice piece of property on water where you can stand up paddle, kayak, and keep a boat. Not really sure price range but also, if you ever wanted to start a family I know that the school district is pretty good. And it's a cool landscape there because it changes from packed coastal areas of belmar to really rural farmland pretty quickly as you go inland. It's nice if you're not into the over-the-top beachy feel and want to live in the real world. haha i don't live there but I assume it is very easy access to manasquan inlet and not a long drive from deal area.

 

pt pleasant boro.
1) affordable close to monmouth county without monmouth county taxes.
2) close enough to all breaks in monmouth county and ocean down to island beach state park
3) very close to the beach minus that busy beach town vibe.
4) neighbors are around year round (that might be a con)
5) houses are affordable. big price range also.

 

I grew up in Monmouth County - Tinton Falls specifically and never appreciated how much I loved it there until I moved to Philly... now I love going back home, lots of great places already mentioned... for a town at the beach, I always liked Long Branch... to be a little inland, definitely check out Red Bank.

 

yeah id say north ocean county or monmouth. also i wouldnt go too far inland especially as you go more south because then it gets very rural and sparse. this is mostly my comfort level because i like towns that are dense or just decently populated because then the towns thrive in businesses and the sort. also as said before, you would not be far from boardwalks (jenks, seaside, etc.) and popular areas where there is a good amount of entertainment.

having surfed most of the coast of jersey i would say that no area of the coast has significantly better or worse spots; many change with every storm/swell.

also sticking in this area you have access to the railroads, proximity to NYC (via parkway) and Philly (via rt. 195 or rts. 70 and 72), and in between some major airports (newark, philly). i also tend to see a pattern of weather with new jersey. if you look at a map of new jersey counties, draw a line in the middle of mercer county to the atlantic through middlesex county. generally, this is the line where storms will produce snow above it and will rain or mix below. aka less snow when below this line. give or take

i would look up some tax differences between counties to find out which youd prefer

hope this helps a little

p.s. this is coming from someone who doesnt know jack about adult life, but some general pros and cons

 

pt pleasant is definitely nice, but it's out of control in the summer. don't expect to leave/come back without sitting in HOURS of traffic w/ bennys.

you drive 3-4 minutes inland from the beach in north/central monmouth county and there is no evidence of being so close to the shore. very nice in terms of foliage, tall trees and very green. doesn't have the desert/pineland landscape that is more evident in ocean county and south of it

 

I live in Lacey/Forked River and it's a nice town, pretty small and quiet. Only a couple minutes away from LBI and Seaside.

 

medford...35 min from lbi..small town

 

Moving North? South, West, or out of the country would have been my guess.

 

yeah i forgot to mention that part too. i despise that pineland-type land

 

I agree with the others here...anywhere in Monmouth County is good. You are around 1 hour to Manhattan via driving, train, or bus (lots of jobs and cool places to go)...2 hours to snowboarding, near the shore, not too far from Philly, etc. Lots of nice farmlands and parks a bit inland. I live in Freehold very close to highway 33 so it's a quick trip in the car and I'm at the beach.

The nice thing is I'll pass the parkway in the summer and see the crowds and traffic not moving at all. But living a bit inland, I take the backroads and NEVER have traffic.

The property values are high in some towns, but you can find less expensive townhomes and the like. Just pay attention to property taxes. If I moved to a house closer to the shore I liked the taxes were $3000 more. I'd rather travel a bit more. On the flip side, it is a popular place to live so if you ever sell a house you should not have much of a problem.