Posted on 04/02/2012 6:49:39 AM PDT by mikelets456
Okay, I am selling my house in NJ because the property taxes, income taxes and insurance are out of control. Overall we'll be saving $6000-$10000 per year if we move. My wife's drive to work will be about the same my drive will be 10 minutes further. The main reason wanting to leave NJ are for the obvious reasons as I think this state will never change and possibly continue its downward spiral. Anyone that lives in PA that lived in NJ...is there anything to warn me of? Am I going from the frying pan to the frying pan or fire? Any suggestions or anything you would like to add? Thanks
You mean a Daisy air rifle is not considered a firearm, like it is here? ;)
LOL! To any Jerseyan, PA is pure redneck country. Churches, guns, beer, wheels, tobacco and bandanna country.
By the way, you can buy firecrackers along the road, just like a vegetable stand.
If it goes boom in PA, they approve of it!
...And then, you go to the liquor store and the clerk had to pass a civil service exam to work there.
I tell you it’s like another planet.
I’m in Luzerne. We love guns also.
I'm sure some sniveling Obamatard scanning our site is excitedly noting our locations.
Bucks is very liberal, as are all the counties in PA and NJ near Philly. If I had to live in the area and was of child bearing age, I’d go with Montgomery County since it is well established with traditional neighborhoods and the least liberal of the bunch. Delaware Co is way too thuggish, Bucks is too cookie cutter, and NJ is NJ. I lived in Philly for 4 years, which was fine for college debauchery, but I wouldn’t want to live there now that I have a family.
Thanks... I realize that. I am in the Marlton/Cherry Hill/Mount laurel area and the taxes keep going up and up. I see no end...our kids are in private school so I don’t utilize that. They cut bulk trash pick up to quarterly, built a controversial item near us against the will of the people. School agendas and a radicalized school district (LBGT) “President”.
I look at it this way... every place has its share of liberals/Progressives. I think I’m really only buying time. Is it really more liberal than my area? Gosh at the very least, I can buy a gun and defend my home without being put in jail and dragged through the NJ red tape!
I moved from Little Egg Harbor Twp (Ocean County) to Carbon County PA in 2004. Carbon is 20 miles north of Allentown, Jim Thorpe boro is our claim to fame. It is semi-redneck here.
My wife and I both work in Phillipsburg, NJ. We only pay PA income tax.
As others have said, Bucks County has an ever increasing tax rate and is quite liberal. The thing to look for is the millage tax for the school district, that is the killer. As a general rule I doubt you will find it much cheaper in Bucks than NJ but I guess it depends on what you have in NJ and what you want to buy in PA real estate wise.
In Carbon, taxes and property values are low and where we live it is quite nice. Would never move back to NJ. Things that would get you arrested and would carry a 20 year prison term are totally legal in PA. The only good thing about NJ is gasoline prices and wine and spirit shopping.
http://www.buckscountyelections.org/ElectionSummary.aspx?id=12
Compared to where I live this looks completely opposite.
Yeah, I agree that Bucks may well be on its way down. This pains me, because I truly think there is no more beautiful place on God’s green earth.
But once New Yorkers start discovering something, and once it becomes trendy, it’s finished. My wife who is from NY hates it for that very reason...too trendy!
I like what I see of Carbon. But most of the houses for sale seem to be vacation-oriented. Not that I mind, but I’d like to stay away from HOAs or associations or anything like that. Where would be a great place to look?
Oh yeah it’s definitely becoming nanny state. I started seeing it in the 90s with bond issuances for open space preservation.
Then I covered an eminent domain case for the Courier Times that was just crazy....basically, there was already a seller and a buyer in agreement on the property, but since the property was surrounded by township-owned land, Middletown wanted to seize it through eminent domain. Seriously. That was their reason. They wanted a contiguous plot of land. People raised hell and it got stopped, but I dunno whatever ended up happening with it.
And you guys went through something like that out your way, didn’t you? The Saba farm?
In some ways I think as screwed up as Jersey is, it might be in a better situation over the long term. It’s so broke, and people are so sick of the status quo, that hardly anything gets done. Pennsylvania seems to have too many petty local officials on a mission anymore.
Carbon is considered the Poconos so there are some vacation homes. But there are a lot of year round homes also.
I would avoid living in downtown Palmerton, Lehighton and Jim Thorpe. However, there are some nice areas in those towns in the out lying areas. Also, the Coal towns are not as nice, this means Nesquehoning, Summit Hill and Lansford.
Stay away from the Palmerton School District. The millage is high and the schools not very good. The best schools are the Lehighton and Jim Thorpe districts. I perfer the townships.
My list of nice places in Carbon to live: Mahoning Twp, Franklin Twp, Penn Forest Twp, Allbrightsville, Kidder Twp
I’m a volunteer frefighter so I tend to rate places by the quality of the fire company. The whole county has less than 70K people and life is slow here. The county doesn’t have a decient library but the local community college (Lehigh Carbon Community College) has one in Lehigh County. Anything south of the Blue mountain (Lehigh and Northampton County is more expensive. North of us is Monroe county which is over-run with new yorkers. Carbon is like the land of the lost. Quiet and nice but somehwat backwards.
It is true that the Republicans have done well in the last few elections but that doesn’t change the fact that Bucks Co PA is a liberal county. Comparitivly speaking there is a “shade tree” mentality. But still, you couldn’t pry me out of PA to move back to NJ for anything.
Living in PA, husband works in NJ (Or used to until O-Blame-O took over!!!!!), NJ income tax deducted from checks, we would file as a non-resident and all tax deducted is refunded. Reciprocal agreement is not mandatory by NJ employers, some won’t do it, too much paperwork for them I guess.
After getting the NJ tax refund, we then have to pay PA income tax, and a local township tax of 1% of earned income.
Also living in PA but working in NJ, PA taxes are supposed to be paid quarterly. We get forms/payment coupons to make payments towards our estimated taxes but we haven’t paid in advance yet, especially since husband has not had much work since O-Blame-O, hard to estimate the unknown. They usually have you estimate your taxes on the previous years income. We have paid a $60 penalty for not paying in advance.
We moved from northern NJ, Sussex County Dec. 2007 to Monroe County in the Poconos. We were both born and raised in NJ. Love, Love, Love Pennsylvania!! We’re 6 to 8 miles south of the Pocono race track We couldn’t afford to buy a house in NJ in 30 yrs. of marriage! We have a chalet style home on an acre of property, taxes are $2600, unheard of in NJ. My brother, still in Sussex County, has less than a half acre and his taxes are about $4800 in a small borough called Hamburg. My mother used to live in a more expensive area, West Milford, NJ her taxes were $5500 back in 2001, no doubt they have gone way up since.
Things we didn’t know were the town charges a 1% tax on your total income; to register vehicles there are tag & title places scattered about, it’s not done at a motor vehicle place like NJ. There is a motor vehicle center for licenses though.
Will continue with more info later...:)
I don’t know. NJ have everything run through the liberal Judges and they will not give that up. The NJEA, almost 50% of the people working for the state, etc, etc,etc. Look at California... we keep waiting for people/Politicians to change and it just keeps getting worse. If O-destructo keeps moving along and gets a 2nd term it won’t matter where one lives because we’ll be in FEMA camps!
oh, I don’t think the PEOPLE are necessarily more liberal... but they’re indifferent enough to be taken advantage of by the libs in local government. they’re too busy benig helicopter parents to realize that legislation has consequences.
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