Families Recreate Downtown Summit — LEGO Block by Lego Block

This past Sunday, 50 families joined together at Washington School’s gymnasium in Summit New Jersey to participate in the 6^th Annual Architectural Workshop recreating downtown Summit out of LEGO blocks.  Truly unbelievable to think of a huge map of downtown Summit highlighting streets and historic buildings and over 50,000 colorful LEGO squares and rectangles being assembled to replicate this beautiful town.  Each one unique and truly a work of art!

The event is organized as a fundraiser for the Summit Historical Society, a membership organization created to preserve and disseminate information about Summit’s rich heritage. Read more

It’s Time to Think Summer – Local Camp Resource Guide for Our NJ Midtown Direct Communities

The dog days of winter are here!!  But I’m thinking spring– longer days, green lawns and the first signs of budding trees and flowers.  It’s such a pretty time here in our New Jersey Midtown Direct communities.  It makes me think of all the great spring and summer resources like our fabulous farmer’s markets, summer concerts and festivals.  And come to think of it, summer is only 5 months away and many parents are now combing through the yellow pages and kids resources for the best area summer camps. Read more

Raise Funds and Be Fit – Race Through Summit Homes

On Sunday, October 16th, the Summit Village Green will come alive as racers converge on the Summit Y5K Run/Walk Course. Runners of all ages and experience levels look to this YMCA 5k Run/Walk/Tot Trot as a meaningful, worthwhile way to combine fitness with fundraising near their New Jersey homes. A bustling annual community event, the 5K course has participants racing throughout scenic areas and close to many landmark homes in Summit.

The new “Friendraising” element encourages the racer/walker to invite others to raise funds in a joint effort to support the Summit YMCA Youth Center. The Youth Center, located at 2 Walnut Street, offers no cost supervised programs and services to youth and teens in Summit, including homework help, Book Clubs, Video Production and Karate Classes; an Achievers Program, and even SAT and college prep classes for youth who qualify. Nearly 300 youth were actively involved in 2010!  For more information or to join in the race fun, please register here.

Should Summit Receive Transit Village Title?

At sueadler.com, we enjoy being known for our ability to help people with their New Jersey midtown direct train line homes.  We’ve always known the virtues of our easy commute and were excited to hear that last week, Summit NJ’s Planning Board voted to recommend the Common Council apply for Transit Village designation. The Transit Village Initiative, a program offered by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, encourages revitalization and the building up of commute towns, just like Summit! Being called a Transit Village showcases our use of public transportation and may attract newcomers to purchase a home in Summit.  What do you think… is this a good idea?

The plan for the Transit Village are that it would begin at the train station and expand in a one-half mile area in all directions from the train station. This could also encourage developers to create more business in the area.  If the Common Council agrees to submit an application, map area included in the Transit Village will be more clearly defined and granted within a few months, according to planning and development consultant member Edward Snieckus.  Find out more by clicking on the local article here.

Video: Give Home Buyers and Sellers What They Are Looking For! Sue Adler and Kenn Renner Share Video and Website Strategies at Keller Williams National Convention

I’ve been fortunate to speak at several major real estate conventions over the years, but this time, I was lucky to have the King of Video, Kenn Renner, on stage with me because he filmed our whole panel! Read more

InmanNext features SueAdler.com as Great Example of Consumer-Centric Real Estate Website

Now there is even more national recognition for Sueadler.com!  Chris Smith from InmanNext interviewed Jim Marks, CEO of  Virtual Results about his “websites that work” and featured my new custom New Jersey real estate site as an example.

When Jim and I discussed how this site was going to be built, we had the Midtown Direct Trainline Town home buyer and seller in mind with each and every page.  Most of our buyers move here from Manhattan, Jersey City,  Hoboken or Brooklyn.  I joke that there is usually a dragger and a dragee out of the city and aside from the house, their priorities are often great schools, direct train for easy commute, and a walkable town.

So….. We built sueadler.com for the buyer relocating to New Jersey who isn’t sure yet which town to call home. Our interactive map has commute times to NYC, links to all of the community info including town tour videos with locals discussing the community, and links to all homes for sale in Millburn, Short Hills, Summit, Chatham, Madison, Maplewood, South Orange, Livingston and surrounding New Jersey towns.

Keeping both buyers and sellers in mind, on each of my listings, we pulled in the corresponding community information. For example, on www.sueadler.com/38rollinghill, you will notice a community video of Chatham, the Chatham blog posts, and the Chatham yelp reviews, as well as Chatham school and commuting info.

What I have discovered is that home buyers go to real estate websites and may see a nice house, but they have no idea what the community is like.  We designed this site with the intention of providing the whole package. And our sellers are thrilled to have their New Jersey homes featured in this way, so it’s a win for everyone.

A huge thank you to Jim Marks and the Virtual Results Team.  And to Chris Smith for giving sueadler.com national exposure!  Click here to see the article or watch the video.

SueAdler.com Showcased As Leader in NJ Real Estate

Our team website, sueadler.com, has been spotlighted in a recent article by Diverse Solutions, a California based company dedicated to providing leading edge technology to real estate, and I wanted to share the good news with you! Click here to see the full article and find out about how our website can help you in finding a home in New Jersey. Reviewing our interactive custom map, complete with train route information, Diverse Solutions, explained that it provided a way to instantly “engage” website users who want to live in New Jersey. They also loved our choice of colors and clean design and our custom quick search which allows website visitors to quickly conduct a search for the New Jersey home that most closely matches their needs and interests. We love the fact that Diverse Solutions took the time to even evaluate our many videos which help you to preview our towns in Chatham, Millburn/Short Hills, Summit, Maplewood, South Orange, Livingston, and Madison.  Our videos are a great way to check out each town, especially if you are relocating. Be sure to tell your friends who are interested in buying or selling real estate in New Jersey, we’d love to help them settle into one of our towns, whether they prefer a home in Chatham or to live in Millburn/Short Hills.  We’re here to help!

Work in NYC? 10 Reasons why you should commute from New Jersey.

10 Reasons why you should move from Manhattan to our awesome New Jersey towns….

1. NJ Transit- Midtown Direct Train gets you into New York Penn Station in 25-50 minutes from South Orange, Maplewood, Millburn, Short Hills, Summit.  After Summit, the trainline branches off to: Chatham, Madison, Convent Station…  and the other branch heads to New Providence and Berkeley Heights….   If you click on link above, you will see parking options whether you live in one of these towns or one of the surrounding towns. Need to commute to downtown to the financial district? Just take the train to Hoboken, and then the path or ferry.

Oh, did I mention that there is valet parking at the Millburn train station, and that there is a jitney bus to get you to and from the Maplewood & South Orange train stations during morning and evening rush hours?

Great Schools

2. We have great public schools! 2010 New Jersey School Report Card

3. Our towns are absolutely charming and beautiful. They are SO not like the New Jersey stereotype. Each town has its own personality(and different sections within each town do as well), and you’ll find that living here you will frequent all of the surrounding towns for different things from shops to restaurants to theatre to fitness centers to art, piano or karate lessons. Read more

Maplewood and South Orange Jitney Routes make Midtown Direct Train commuting a breeze

So you need to commute to NYC and you can’t spend $1Million on a house??? Check out these GREAT New Jeresy neighborhoods – in these midtown direct “walk to train” locations!

What a day! 3 open houses on our three new listings – Two are getting at least one offer, and we had 27-30 people at each one.  All three of these homes are priced in the $500′s.  My team was also booked all weekend with buyers. What does all of this mean?

1. There has been so much pent up demand for great AFFORDABLE homes that  the nice ones that are priced right  are flying off the market.

2. The entry level market has now come down to a level where buyers can jump into the market. Of course the low interest rates have added the cherry on the top.

3. Even in a “buyer’s market”, you will always be able to re-sell a well priced home with close proximity to trains to NYC. This is what most buyers moving out from NYC are looking for.

4. Has this segment of the market hit bottom?

So where can you find these more affordable homes? Below are neighborhoods in each of the midtown direct trainline towns that are under a mile to the train.

• South Orange – South of South Orange Ave, there are two neighborhoods that are easily walkable and you can find housing that won’t break the bank. The area between Walton Rd and Wyoming Ave is one ( Conway Ct, Rynda, West End Rd, Lenox Ave to name a few streets) and the streets surrounding Seton Hall University are the other. North of South Orange Ave there are the Hart Dr ranch homes, and further north you can occasionally find a smaller home nestled amongst the larger ones off of Wyoming Ave.  The same would be true of the Montrose Section.

• Maplewood- Much of Maplewood fits the bill and that’s why so many buyers move here from Park Slope, Brooklyn, and NYC.  East of Valley Rd, across from Memorial Park, is  very popular among the “walk to train” crowd. Here are two examples:  www.sueadler.com/35Kensington and www.sueadler.com/36Madison Houses within a few blocks of Maplewood Village may be in the $500k-700k range, but they don’t seem to come on the market very often. There are homes on Jefferson Ave and some of the surrounding streets such as Brookside Rd, have sold in the $500k’s and 600′s as well.

• Millburn- The South Mountain Section and Wyoming Sections are the two largest neighborhoods that are “walk to  train,  town, Taylor Park, Wyoming Elem or South Mountain Elem, middle and high school ”. There are also many small streets off of Millburn Ave that are close by as well.Homes range from the $400k’s to the 800k’s with a few exceptions in the South Mountain Section.In the Wyoming Section you can easily find homes in this range, but there are also more expensive homes over $1Million.

• Short Hills - The Glenwood Section ( where I live!) is the perfect place to be – walk to Glenwood Elem and top rated Millburn HS, Short Hills train station, and Millburn Ave restaurants and shops. Most homes range from the 600k’s to the $1Million range, but certain streets wth larger homes and properties such as Pine Terrace East  command much more. www.sueadler.com/11PineTerraceEast Generally speaking, the Glenwood Section runs between the Short Hills Train Station and Millburn Ave. The main roads running through are Woodland Rd, Baltusrol Way, and Short Hills Ave, with many small charming treelined streets in between. The Knollwood Section, behind the Millburn Middle School, is also similar in price to Glenwood. This neighborhood  comes in between Hobart Avenue and Old Short Hills Rd – Whitney Dr, Midhurst Dr, Haddonfield Drive are a few of the streets you find in this storybook enclave of charming colonials and tudors.

• Summit Most of the areas surrounding the Summit Train Station tend to be a bit pricier however there are certain streets close to the train station that do turn out homes for under $900,000. To name a few, Mountain Ave and Ashland Rd- south of the Summit Train station, and Waldron Ave, and DeBary Place- north of the station. I do need to mention a neighborhood that is just over a mile, but with comparable homes to the Glenwood and South Mountain homes in Millburn/Short Hills. Its the Memorial Field area by Brayton Elementary School. Don’t overlook this neighborhood if you’re looking for an awesome neighborhood in a great school district.

• Chatham Boro – The nice thing about Chatham Boro is that almost all of it is within a mile of the Chatham Train Station. The Station is located just off Fairmount Dr and Main Street so its central location and stellar school system, makes it a sought after town. The majority of homes in the Boro are in the “affordable” range and are close to Main Street shops and restaurants, and elementary schools as well.

• Madison -The Madison Train Station is situated between Waverly Rd and Greenwood Rd, just south of Main Street. On the northern side of Main Street in Madison you can easily find 3 to 4 bedroom homes starting in the $400′s, and ranging up to over $1M. Because Madison is home to Drew University, Main Street feels much like a college town with a jazz bar, trendy shops and a wide variety of restaurants.

So, there you have it! If you want to see your options in person, just give me a call (973)464-9129.

Yours to count on,

Sue Adler