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April 2011 – week 3 Issue
The highlights of Tenafly School budget
Celebrities look for luxury home in Alpine
Housing trends in Bergen County
Tenafly schools propose lowest tax levy
Single women buy more houses
The highlights of Tenafly School budget
The school budget for Tenafly brought in many surprises and promised a good 2011-2012 session. Besides proposing a low tax levy, the lowest in 20 years, the budget also hopes to ring in new educational programs, hands on experience and courses. Of the entire funds, approximately 50% would be used for instructional programs, 27% for mandated services, 20% for facilities, operations and maintenance and 2% for extracurricular activities. As per the proposal, the Tenafly elementary schools will benefit from new literacy program that will be funded for by grants. For students at the Tenafly middle school, a new forensic course would be introduced, while a self-select English honors course would be introduced for 9th graders. Hands-on learning opportunities through experience will also be provided to students across various grades. Technology replacement, based on a five year plan would also be considered. Besides improving the quality of education, the budget also proposes ideas to cut down costs. Shared services with the borough of Tenafly are proposed to achieve this. Also the school would be willing to rent out space to other districts and universities. Education at Tenafly has consistently been ranked as the best in the county by various sources. The Tenafly High School was ranked as the third best in New Jersey, and the Principal and Vice Principal were recognized as the Visionary Principal and Vice Principal of the year.
Celebrities look for luxury home in Alpine
The luxury housing market in the various towns of Bergen County is constantly attracting celebrities. This is all the more true for Alpine, which has been ranked as the town with the most expensive zip codes by many authorities. This town is also home to many famous personalities such as Britney Spears, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock and also Eddie Murphy. In recent news, Kim Kardashian and LaLa Vasquez were seen touring the town looking for a luxury home in Alpine. Both of them were noted to be looking for houses close by, so that they can hang out together. With both their men Kris Humphries and Carmelo Anthony in the NBA, both the women hope that this way they can hang out together more often. Carmelo and LaLa intend to move to New Jersey for their three year old son. As per sources they are currently looking for homes in the $20,000 to $30,000 rental range and would seal the deal only when they find homes that they really like.
Housing trends in Bergen County
Seekers for luxury homes in Bergen County today may have many good options and suitable rates to choose from. After the four year slowdown of the housing market, many homes in the towns of Bergen County sit vacant. Statistics by the US Census data also showcased that the percent of vacant homes was much higher in 2010 as compared to the year 2000. The census showed that one out of every set of 21 homes was vacant in Bergen County for the year 2010. The analysis covered luxury homes, homes in the mid class segment and also poor neighborhoods. The hike in vacancy rates was caused by a combination of factors. One of the most important reasons was the downturn of the housing market in 2007-2008. A bad employment scenario led to many people losing jobs and not being able to pay mortgages. This led them to lose their homes to foreclosure. In the luxury housing segment, Alpine was one of the hardest hit with vacancy rates rose from 3% to 8.8%. Even in the town of Allendale, vacancy rates rose from 1.5% to 6.4%. Also in the town of Edgewater, vacancy rates went up to 10.3%, reflecting the large number of newly constructed vacant condominiums.
Tenafly schools propose lowest tax levy
The lowest tax levy to be ever proposed in decades was proposed for the Tenafly school district in 2011. With a proposal of 1.25% increase in the districts tax levy, the figure remains well below the state-mandated 2% tax levy cap. Also in order to keep the tax levies at a minimum, the finance committee will return 50% of the state aid worth $563,057 to the taxpayers. The remaining funds would be used to reinstate the technology plans and support for students. The funds would not be used for employing additional staff. Officials stated that the budget this year has been proposed with two basic objectives in mind: One is to provide high quality education for children and the second is to respect the boundaries set by financial restraints, while working towards the first objective. The current budget has been prepared keeping last years lessons in mind. In the previous year, the State of New Jersey had cut down district program support to the amount of $1.9 million. As a result, 60 staff positions were reduced and many other expenses curtailed. In this year, the school district hopes to raise revenues from alternative sources too like renting and sharing of resources.
A recent survey by the National Association of Realtors revealed some interesting results. As per the survey, over 20% of single women were purchasing homes as compared to 12% of single men. The statistics also revealed that this was possible because women were more financially balanced than their single male counterparts. Studies by other departments have also revealed such interesting results. As per the National Center for Education Statistics of the US Department, women were noted to earn 58% of all college degrees. Studies also show that it is women who make up for 50% of the total workforce. As compared to earlier times when it was difficult for women to get mortgage, today banks and financial organizations do not discriminate between men and women while staking claims. Women are thus getting equal opportunities both at education, the workplace and banks. What is more important is that they are taking full advantage of that. A spike in the home buying trends of single women also goes on to show that these single women are better poised for the future.
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