Bergen County Scores 25 Towns in New Jersey Monthly’s, “Best Places to Live Across NJ List “

Ridgewood Ranks 48th

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, New Jersey Monthly has released its rankings of the best places to live across New Jersey.

In compiling New Jersey Monthly’s 2019 Top Towns list, researchers at Leflein Associates, an independent research firm based in Ringwood, considered five categories to represent the quality of life in New Jersey’s 565 municipalities: home values, property taxes, crime rate, school performance and a lifestyle factor (explained below).

Due to a lack of statistically significant data, towns with populations under 1,500 were dropped from the survey. The research team ranked each of the remaining 513 towns based on the following indicators: average residential tax bill (2018); change in average property tax bill (2016-2018); effective property tax rate for 2018; median home-sales price (2018); change in median home-sales price (2016-2018); average days homes were on the market (2018); total crime rate (2016); violent-crime rate (2016); ranking in New Jersey Monthly’s Top Public High Schools chart (published September 2018); and a lifestyle factor that considers the number of acute-care hospitals and live performing-arts theaters within 10 miles of the municipality’s main zip code, number of restaurants within two miles of the municipality’s main zip code, and average commute time for those working away from home. The final rankings were based on each municipality’s combined rankings for the 10 indicators. Extra weighting was given to the Effective Tax Rate and Top High Schools indicators.

Some of the big movers experienced a significant increase in median home price from 2016 to 2018. For example, Closter, at number 10, made a huge chart jump from number 160 in 2017, thanks largely to a 26.6 percent increase in median home price. 

Bergen County has 25 towns in the Top 100 and 7 in the top 50 

 7 Woodcliff Lake
10 Closter
11 Mahwah
18 Westwood
19 Washington Township
 22 Alpine Bergen
48 Ridgewood

https://njmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CHART-TOP-TOWNS-2019-1.pdf?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz—tZhLdwg6fYfU07U_OjTxD8dTaJFy4Yh31qbNccPLOsiM28pLzPovuwxfGfCDrsmz-5e3ET1GArR38R6pC0JcwKCbKBMAM3EleRyFRLxDJR9kupc&_hsmi=76151963&utm_content=76151963&utm_source=hs_automation&hsCtaTracking=63c42614-ce1f-4ff0-9703-202b12fd2ed2%7C0b72a8d8-fd96-4ef1-8393-38579c28f23e