Coldwell Banker Real Estate Finds Three New Jersey Suburbs Top List in New Ranking: Best Places to Live for Suburbanites
PARSIPPANY, NJ--(Marketwire - Sep 25, 2012) - According to a new ranking by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, New Jersey is the place to be for people who love the suburbs. Three New Jersey towns, Haworth, Englewood Cliffs and Ho-Ho-Kus, topped the list for the "Top 10 Best Places to Live for Suburbanites" coming in at No. 3, No. 4 and No. 6 respectively from more than 11,000 suburbs across the United States.
Part of a series of five lists produced by Coldwell Banker and Onboard Informatics, a data company which provides real estate information, the "Best Places to Live for Suburbanites" ranking was based on a range of attributes including access to suburban amenities (such as grocery stores and banks), proximity to good schools, commuting by car and community safety.
In addition to high scores in suburban characteristics, the data also revealed that residents in Haworth, Englewood Cliffs and Ho-Ho-Kus spend four times as much money preparing meals at home than they do going out, are likely to own their own home (74%) and twice as likely as the national average to engage in home improvement projects.
In the national ranking, New Jersey suburbs were only preceded by Cherry Hills Village, Colo., which topped the list as the No. 1 suburb, and Clyde Hill, Wash., which took the No. 2 spot. The following communities topped the list as the "Best Places to Live for Suburbanites" in New Jersey:
Best Places for Suburbanites in New Jersey | ||
Rank | City/Town | Score |
1 | Haworth | 972.36 |
2 | Englewood Cliffs | 970.93 |
3 | Ho-Ho-Kus | 967.14 |
4 | Upper Saddle River | 960.70 |
5 | Harrington Park | 955.49 |
6 | Alpine | 952.23 |
7 | Tenafly | 950.63 |
8 | Demarest | 950.59 |
9 | Mendham | 945.90 |
10 | Old Tappan | 945.73 |
Trends from New Jersey Suburbs
According to data from Onboard Informatics, Coldwell Banker Real Estate identified the following trends among the New Jersey suburban communities included in the ranking:
New Jersey Suburbs Rank High in Safety: Crime is 47 percent less likely in New Jersey suburbs statewide and 84 percent less likely in the top 10 New Jersey suburbs than the national average.
New Jersey Suburbanites are Homeowners: Approximately 74 percent of people in New Jersey suburbs own their homes, compared to 67 percent of people nationally. In the top 10 New Jersey suburbs, 91 percent of residents are homeowners.
Errands Are Easier: The top 10 ranked New Jersey suburbs have approximately 18 times as many conveniences and amenities as the national average, such as gas stations, grocery stores and banks, making everyday tasks just a little bit easier.
New Jersey Suburbanites are 'One' with Nature: A suburb's landscape certainly has its perks. Residents living in the top 10 New Jersey suburbs are nine times as likely to be interested in outdoor activities compared to the national average.
"The convenient amenities, outdoor space and community safety in suburbs continue to appeal to New Jersey residents," said Hal Maxwell, president, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, New Jersey and Rockland County, N.Y. "Those of us who live in the Garden State have the best of both worlds - taking advantage of the comforts of suburbia, while only being a short distance from big cities like New York and Philadelphia."
This is the second list released in the Coldwell Banker "Best Places to Live" five-part series in partnership with Onboard Informatics, ranking the top places based on lifestyle. In July 2012 Coldwell Banker identified the "Best Places for Social Seekers," and will be releasing rankings for Adventurers, Leisure Lovers and Culture Cravers in the coming months. In addition to this series, Coldwell Banker also offers a Lifestyle Search feature on ColdwellBanker.com, which allows people to find homes by rating the importance of lifestyle characteristics.
Methodology - Suburbanites Ranking
Coldwell Banker partnered with Onboard Informatics, a leading provider of trusted real estate information and technology solutions, to identify the Coldwell Banker Real Estate Best Places to Live for "Suburbanites" (those who love backyard BBQs, prefer nights at home and crave relaxing days in a park, or shopping at the nearby mall). The areas analyzed are all U.S. Census designated places, incorporated places and county subdivisions, which include minor civil divisions and census county divisions (all as defined by the United States Census Bureau). Towns with fewer than 1,000 residents were excluded from the Suburbanites ranking.
*Data regarding safety, commuting and the behavior of suburbanites was provided by Onboard Informatics and based on the analysis of 11,029 communities defined as suburbs. National data was also provided by Onboard Informatics. Trends were identified by comparing the average of all suburbs and the average of the top 10 to the national average values for selected attributes.
**Onboard Informatics system uses Ranks to determine the National Top 10 list, Top 100 Places list and Top 50 places per state lists. Each attribute for each place is assigned a value (number). In concept, scores and ranks are created by adding up the values for all attributes for a place that are relevant to the category and then ranking / sorting them. In practice, in order to assure that each attribute contributes to the rolled up category scores and ranks correctly, additional calculations are performed as follows:
Scores: Base scores are derived from the raw attribute data by normalizing to a 0 - 1,000 point scale. This is required as the raw data does not display [WU1] uniformity of scale (one attribute may have values between 0 and 100, another between 57 and 34,212, etc.). Once normalized, each attribute score is multiplied by a weighting factor between 1 and 5. Weighting factors were assigned by Onboard and approved by Coldwell Banker based on relevance and importance of the attribute to the category. This results in a potential score between 0 and 5,000 for a given attribute.
All attribute scores for a category are then summed to create a category score for each place. These raw category scores are then normalized again to a 0 - 1,000 scale for display.
Ranks: Ranking is simply the ordering of places by their category score. Sort is in descending order such that the place with the largest category score receives a rank = 1. Unlike scores, ranks are calculated by top city/ towns (1-100) and within each state (1-50).
About Coldwell Banker®
Since 1906, the Coldwell Banker® organization has been a premier provider of full-service residential and commercial real estate. Coldwell Banker is the oldest national real estate brand in the United States and today has a network of approximately 83,000 sales agents working in approximately 3,100 offices in 50 countries and territories. The Coldwell Banker brand is known for creating innovative consumer services as recently seen by being the first national real estate brand to create an iPad application and the first to fully harness the power of video in real estate listings, news and information through its Coldwell Banker On Location(SM) YouTube channel. The Coldwell Banker system is a leader in specialty markets such as resort, new homes and luxury properties through its Coldwell Banker Previews International® marketing program. Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each office is independently owned and operated.
