1 What a budget buys

Closed sales, grouped by what the buyer actually paid. Bands are cut on sale price, not asking price, so each row answers "what did this budget get" rather than "what was advertised".

Read the last three columns together and the bands stop looking alike. Under $1.0M the median sale-to-first-ask ratio was 112.1% and the median time to contract 20 days. Between $1.5M and $2.0M the median ratio was 133.4% in 12 days, with 93% of that band closing above the first ask.

Above $2.0M the pattern loosens again: 116.7% of first ask and 79% above it. The gap between the first asking price and the closing price is therefore narrower in this band than in the middle of the market. The record shows the narrower gap; it does not show why, and pricing intent is not something a closings file records.

What this means in practice: the band you are shopping decides how much of a gap to plan for, and the $1.0M-$2.0M middle is where the gap is widest. It does not mean every house follows the band. A median is the middle of a distribution, not a rule.

The closed-sale sample includes many large homes: houses with five or more bedrooms were 53% of closed sales in the period, which is why a town-wide median says less here than a median inside the size and band you are actually shopping.

Want this run against a specific budget and a specific block? Ask us to look at it.

2 Where the market actually is

What the closed-sale record supports about direction, and what it does not.

The headline period is 12 months of closings, October 2025 through September 2026: 247 closed single-family sales, median $1,524,000, with the middle half of sales falling between $1,150,000 and $1,999,999. Every month in that window is whole, which is why it is the headline rather than the pipeline's mid-month window.

The median ratio of sale price to first asking price was 123.8%, and 87% of sales finished strictly above it. Time was short at both ends: a median of 14 days from listing to the MLS pending date, then 40 more to the closing table.

On an equal-length, fully covered basis the median moved +2.6% and the number of sales changed by -4. That is a modest move, and it is eleven months against eleven months rather than a calendar year.

A change in the median is not the same as a change in what a given house is worth. The median moves when the mix of houses that happened to sell changes — more large houses in one window, more entry-level ones in the next — as well as when values move. Treat it as a description of what sold, not as an appreciation rate for your own home.

Those supply counts are a single dated snapshot, not a feed. They describe October 25, 2026 and nothing since. The months-of-supply figure is carried as published: it divides that day's 29 available listings by a pace of 245 closings over October 25, 2025 to October 24, 2026 — a few days different at each end from this guide's headline period of 247 closings over October 2025 to September 2026. The two are close but they are not the same window, and the ratio has not been recomputed against a period its source did not use.

3 Schools, and how placement actually works

Montclair does not work like most New Jersey districts. It runs a magnet system built on family choice, which means a house does not come with a school attached.

Montclair Public Schools has operated a choice-based magnet system since 1977, adopted as a voluntary desegregation plan. The district states two goals for it: maintaining racial balance across its schools, and giving families a choice of school theme. Families apply through the district rather than being assigned by street address.

For a buyer, that is the thing to understand before choosing a street: unlike a town with fixed attendance zones, buying on a particular block does not secure a particular elementary or middle school. Placement depends on the application, available seats and the district's balance rules. Montclair High School is the exception — it is the township's only public high school, so it is not a school of choice.

The elementary magnet themes

• The district's magnet elementary schools are organized around themes, which is what families choose between: science and technology, university studies, environmental studies, the arts, and global studies. Which school carries which theme, and which have seats in a given grade, should be confirmed with the district for the year you are enrolling.

  verified fact — theme list; this guide does not map themes to schoolschecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, magnet system FAQ (theme list)

The seven elementary schools

• Bradford https://bradford.montclairps.org/
• Charles H. Bullock https://chb.montclairps.org/
• Edgemont Montessori https://edgemont.montclairps.org/
• Hillside https://hillside.montclairps.org/
• Nishuane https://nishuane.montclairps.org/
• Northeast https://northeast.montclairps.org/
• Watchung https://watchung.montclairps.org/

Those are the seven elementary schools the district currently lists, checked November 11, 2026. Grade spans and which theme each one carries should come from the school's own page or the district office rather than from this guide — and remember that a nearby school is not an assigned school here.

One dated performance snapshot

• Spring 2025 NJSLA mathematics, share of students meeting or exceeding expectations — grade 3: district 73.0% against the state's 49.7%; grade 4: district 66.4% against 46.7%; grade 5: district 64.6% against 44.2%.

  official district record — Spring 2025 testing, published February 2026checked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, Board of Education workshop packet of February 9, 2026, slide "Spring 2025 Math NJSLA Data Recap"

• Read those three rows for exactly what they are. They are district-wide mathematics results for three grades from Spring 2025 testing, presented in a February 2026 board packet. The slide does not give the number of students tested or the participation rate, so those denominators are not known from this source. They are not an individual school's results, not a ranking, not the 2026 assessment, and not a prediction for any particular child.

  limitationchecked November 11, 2026 Limitations of the cited slide, as published

• For results by individual school, by subject and by grade, including participation and subgroup detail, use the state's own School Performance Reports rather than a summary slide.

  where to go nextchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Department of Education, School Performance Reports

District structure, as currently published

• The district's current school navigation lists Buzz Aldrin and Glenfield as its middle schools, plus Montclair Early Learning Academy for early grades.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, district site school list

• Montclair High School is the township's only public high school, and for that reason is not a school of choice.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, magnet system FAQ

• Montclair Early Learning Academy operates as its own school with its own site and calendar; its published calendar shows a back-to-school night on September 10, 2026.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Early Learning Academy

• A transfer between schools after placement runs through a separate Freedom of Choice Application. The district's magnet FAQ describes filing it with the Central Office by May 1, and says transfers are granted only where space exists and balance can be maintained. That FAQ page carries no date, so treat the deadline as the shape of the process rather than as this year's calendar — confirm the applicable year's transfer window with the district.

  process, from an undated page — confirm the current windowchecked November 11, 2026 Montclair Public Schools, magnet system FAQ (undated page)

Verifying enrollment for a specific address and child

The district's registration page sets out the process. These are the steps it describes, in order.

1. Complete the district's online registration application.
2. Prepare the documents the district requires: proof of the child's age, proof of residency, and the required medical records.
3. Expect a follow-up phone appointment with the district as part of registration.
4. Ask the district directly which school the child would attend for the specific grade and the specific school year. Do not infer it from a feeder chart, a nearby school, or a listing's description.
5. If a particular school matters to the decision, ask the district about current seat availability in that grade before the house decision is final, and ask how the Freedom of Choice transfer process would apply.

The district's 2026-27 tour and registration link resolves to a downloadable document rather than a web page, and its contents are not verified here.

Montclair Public Schools, registration

4 Getting to Manhattan

Six stations inside the township, a rail trip that currently ends in Hoboken, and a bus that runs straight to Port Authority.

The stations

• Six Montclair-Boonton Line stations sit inside Montclair Township, in timetable order toward Hoboken: Montclair Heights, Mountain Avenue, Upper Montclair, Watchung Avenue, Walnut Street and Bay Street. Montclair State University station is the next stop up the line and carries the university's name, but it is in Little Falls — a useful nearby option, not a township station. In the other direction, Glen Ridge and Bloomfield are in their own municipalities.

  verified fact — the timetable establishes the stop order, the municipal sources establish which town each stop is inchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Getting to Montclair by Train or Bus; NJ Transit station page for Montclair State University

• Which station a house is near changes the ride length materially. On the timetable effective November 15, train 6206 is scheduled to leave Upper Montclair at 6:47 a.m. and Bay Street at 6:57 a.m., reaching New York Penn Station at 7:32 a.m. — a scheduled 45 minutes from Upper Montclair and 35 from Bay Street on that train.

  verified fact — one train, not a rangechecked November 11, 2026 Montclair-Boonton weekday timetable effective November 15, 2026, train 6206; cells independently verified against the rendered timetable page

• Later peak trains run longer. On the same timetable, train 6210 leaves Upper Montclair at 7:25 a.m. and Bay Street at 7:35 a.m., reaching New York Penn Station at 8:18 a.m. — a scheduled 53 minutes from Upper Montclair and 43 from Bay Street.

  verified fact — one train, not a rangechecked November 11, 2026 Montclair-Boonton weekday timetable effective November 15, 2026, train 6210; cells independently verified against the rendered timetable page

• Under the temporary cutover schedule the trip is a transfer, not a direct ride. Train 6206 on the 10/11–11/14 timetable leaves Bay Street at 7:09 a.m. and reaches Hoboken at 7:41 a.m.; the timetable's connecting PATH service departs 7:48 a.m. and reaches 33rd Street at 8:03 a.m. — 54 scheduled minutes from Bay Street to 33rd Street, including the transfer.

  verified fact — one train, not a rangechecked November 11, 2026 Montclair-Boonton weekday timetable effective 10/11/26 to 11/14/26, train 6206 with the timetable's PATH connection; cells independently verified against the rendered timetable page

The bus, and the backup

• NJ Transit's own alternate-service plan for the Montclair-Boonton Line names bus route 101 from Montclair to Port Authority Bus Terminal. That makes 101 the practical backup when rail service is disrupted, and a direct option to Midtown that does not involve a transfer at Hoboken.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton Line alternate service plan

• Route 101 runs weekdays only — the timetable states no Saturday or Sunday service. Its Montclair stops include Park Street at Bloomfield Avenue and, at Upper Montclair railroad station, Bellevue Plaza on Bellevue Avenue, so for parts of the township the bus stop is closer than the train station. As one scheduled example, a 6:42 a.m. departure from Upper Montclair is timetabled into Port Authority at 7:27 a.m. — 45 scheduled minutes, not a measured or door-to-door time.

  verified fact — issue date read from the timetable itselfchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, route 101 timetable and map, issue marked T0101 - 7/26

Weekends are a different railroad

• On weekends, regular Montclair-Boonton service stops at Bay Street only within Montclair. The five other township stations are not served by the regular weekend trains, so a weekend trip from Upper Montclair or Watchung Avenue means getting to Bay Street first. This is the single most useful weekend fact for choosing a street.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton weekend timetables (10/11–11/14 and effective November 15, 2026)

• Weekend trains run to Hoboken. New York Penn Station is reached by changing at Newark Broad Street, not by a direct train. On the current weekend timetable a Bay Street 8:31 a.m. departure reaches Newark Broad Street at 8:44, where the connecting train leaves at 8:50 and arrives Penn at 9:13. On the timetable effective November 15 the same pattern holds — for example Bay Street 7:00 to Broad Street 7:13, connecting 7:16 and arriving Penn 7:39.

  verified fact — scheduled connections, not door-to-door or reliabilitychecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton weekend timetables, current and effective November 15, 2026

• One reading trap on the timetable effective November 15: the columns printed in brown are extra holiday service for November 27, 2026, January 18, 2027 and February 15, 2027 only, and those do include the upper Montclair stations. They are not normal weekend service and should not be read as such.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Transit, Montclair-Boonton weekend timetable effective November 15, 2026

Checking a commute properly

What to do rather than trusting a town-level average.

1. Name the actual Manhattan destination and the arrival time that matters, then read the timetable backwards from it.
2. Check the timetable that will be in effect when the move happens, not the one in effect today — on this edition's date those are two different documents.
3. Check the return trip as well as the morning. Evening frequency and the last usable train often decide whether a commute is livable.
4. Check weekend and off-peak service separately, on the weekend timetable rather than the weekday one — and remember that regular weekend trains serve Bay Street only.
5. Walk or drive from the specific house to the specific station at the specific hour. Station access, parking availability and the local street pattern vary block by block.
6. Have a backup in mind: bus 101 to Port Authority, a different Montclair station, the PATH route via Hoboken, or driving to a Morris & Essex Line station. A single-point commute is fragile.

Station parking and permits

• Montclair's Mayor and Council adopted parking ordinance changes published May 28, 2026, with meter changes effective July 6, 2026 and permit changes starting with July billing. The Bay Street 24-hour monthly permit rose from $100 to $125; surface commuter permits from $60 to $70; noncommuter permits from $50 to $60. An early-bird daily rate of $8 applies with entry and exit time restrictions.

  verified fact — municipal source, datedchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Parking Update: Ordinances Adopted by Mayor & Council

• NJ Transit's own station pages appear to carry older Montclair parking prices than the township's adopted ordinance. Where the two disagree, the township's dated update is the better source for a fee.

  observationchecked November 11, 2026 Comparison of the township parking update against NJ Transit station pages

• A published permit price is not evidence that a permit is obtainable. Availability, waiting lists and eligibility are separate questions for the Township Parking Utility, and they should be asked before a commute plan depends on parking at a particular station.

  caveatchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Parking Utility

5 Taxes and the cost of owning

Montclair's assessments sit far below market value, which makes the headline tax rate misleading in both directions. Here is the mechanism, with the state's own certified figures.

A New Jersey tax bill is the assessed value multiplied by the general tax rate. In Montclair the assessed value is well below market value, and that is the source of most of the confusion buyers arrive with.

In the Table of Equalized Valuations published October 1, 2026, the Director of the Division of Taxation put Montclair's average ratio of assessed to true value at 52.38% — assessments across the township average a little over half of market value. That is why a general rate that looks high is not the whole story: for 2025 Montclair's general rate was $3.516 per $100 of assessed value while the state-calculated effective rate, which expresses the burden against true market value, was 2.160%.

Those two figures come from different tables and different years, so they do not multiply together into one year's bill. Read the ratio as a statement about the assessment base and the effective rate as a town-to-town comparison.

The certified figures

• Average ratio of assessed to true value, 52.38%. Aggregate assessed valuation $7,217,719,800; aggregate true value $13,779,533,792. Published October 1, 2026.

  official recordchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, Table of Equalized Valuations 2026 (Prior to Tax Court Appeals), Essex County, district 0713 Montclair Twp, page 9

• 2025 general tax rate: $3.516 per $100 of assessed value. 2025 effective tax rate: 2.160% of true value. These are the 2025 figures; we did not locate and verify a 2026 certified general rate for this edition, which is a limit on our checking rather than evidence that none exists.

  official record — 2025 rate yearchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, 2025 General Tax Rates, Essex County, page 8

• 2026 average residential statistics for Montclair Township: 9,607 residential line items, average assessed value $641,707, 278 recorded sales, average sale price $1,353,109.54. The table's average tax bill column is blank for Montclair, so that figure is unknown from this source. Note too that this counts all residential line items and sales, which is a different and wider cohort than the single-family closed sales analyzed earlier in this guide.

  official recordchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, 2026 Average Residential Statistics, page 5

• Chapter 123, applicable to tax appeals for tax year 2027: Montclair's average ratio is 52.38% and the common level range runs from 44.52% to 60.24%. The table's own header states the 2027 appeal year — these are not the 2026 appeal-year limits, and the range describes the township, not any individual property's eligibility.

  official record — 2027 appeal yearchecked November 11, 2026 NJ Division of Taxation, Chapter 123 Laws of 1973, Average Ratios and Common Level Ranges applicable to tax appeals for tax year 2027, page 9

Those are figures from the listings themselves, and they are a different kind of thing from the certified records above. Each closed listing carries the assessment and tax amount in force for its own tax year, so the rows are grouped by year rather than blended into one number that would belong to no year at all.

The assessment-to-sale column is a statistic about this sample of homes that actually sold — not the state's official ratio, and not the Chapter 123 figure that decides appeal eligibility. Recently sold houses sold above their assessments more than the township average did, which is exactly why the sample's ratio sits below the certified 52.38%. Use the certified figure for anything to do with an appeal.

The scheduled revaluation, and the 2026 budget

• Montclair has a town-wide revaluation scheduled: municipal material describes the work being completed in 2027, with the new values effective for tax year 2028. This is a scheduled municipal program applying across the township — not a consequence of any individual sale, and not a prediction of what any one bill will become.

  verified fact — scheduled, dates subject to municipal actionchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Tax and Property Assessment Q&A; 2026 budget and finance presentation

• For 2026 the township published the components of the change for its stated average home, assessed at $641,700: Township +$160.42, Essex County −$25.67, Montclair Public Schools annual budget +$847.04, and a voter-approved school referendum +$558.27 split between the third- and fourth-quarter bills, with a comparable referendum amount billed again in 2027.

  official record — applies to the township's stated average home, not to any specific propertychecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, 2026 Property Tax Bill Information

• The 2026 levy is divided as follows: Montclair Public Schools 54.25%, Township 23.72%, Essex County 14.53%, Type I School District 2.90%, School Referendum 2.32%, Library 1.57%, County Open Space 0.71%.

  official recordchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, 2026 Property Tax Bill Information

• The township's Finance Committee announced a public meeting on budget and taxes for November 12, 2026 — the day after this edition was written. No outcome from it is reflected here.

  known gapchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Finance Committee to Host Public Meeting on Budget and Taxes

Official lookups for a specific property

• Township of Montclair — Finance and Taxes, Tax and Property Assessment Q&A https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Finance-and-Taxes/Tax-and-Property-Assessment-QA
• Township of Montclair — 2026 Property Tax Bill Information https://www.montclairnjusa.org/News-articles/2026-Property-Tax-Bill-Information
• NJ Division of Taxation — Local Property Tax statistical tables https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/lpt/statdata.shtml
• NJ Division of Taxation — Chapter 123 definitions and equations (how an appeal ratio is applied) https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/pdf/lpt/chap123/ch123definitions.pdf
• NJ Division of Taxation — Table of Equalized Valuations 2026 https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/pdf/lptval/2026/2026TEV.pdf

Beyond the tax bill

Montclair's housing stock has a median year built of 1922 among the homes that sold in the period, and the ownership costs that follow from that age are not optional. Slate and tile roofs, original windows, knob-and-tube or early wiring, galvanised or lead supply lines, oil tanks, plaster, asbestos-containing materials, and stone foundations all appear in houses of this vintage, and each has a maintenance and insurance consequence.

Budget for them as a program rather than a surprise: a roof and a heating system have known service lives, and a hundred-year-old house will present one of them sooner or later. The diligence section below lists where to establish what a specific house actually has.

Want the tax picture worked out for a specific property? Ask us to look at it.

6 Housing stock and property diligence

What this town's houses are, and the specific records to pull before committing to one of them.

Among the single-family homes that sold in the period, Colonials were 65% of sales with a median year built of 1922, and Victorians were 12% with a median year built of 1897. Those are the style labels listing agents recorded on the homes that sold — they describe the sales sample, not an inventory of every house in the township.

What the sample does establish is that a typical Montclair single-family transaction involves a house built well before modern codes. That is what the checks below are built around. Whether a particular house sits in a designated historic district, has open permits, or has an older oil tank are all parcel-level questions — this guide cannot tell you how common any of them is, and the records that answer them for a specific address are listed next.

Records to pull for a specific property

In rough order of how often they change a decision.

1. The property's own assessment record and tax history from the township, including any pending added assessment. This is the only assessment figure that matters for the house in question.
2. The permit history from the Montclair building department. Open permits, missing certificates of approval, and additions that do not appear in the record become the buyer's problem, and this is where they surface.
3. Whether the property sits in a designated historic district or is an individually designated landmark, and what that means for windows, siding, roofing and any exterior alteration. A restriction on replacement materials is a real cost and a real timeline, and the township publishes a historic inventory and zoning maps through its online services.
4. Flood zone for the specific parcel, from FEMA's official map service. The FEMA map is one input rather than the whole answer: a parcel outside a mapped high-risk zone can still flood, and local drainage, stream proximity and basement history are worth asking about separately. The insurance consequence follows the designation.
5. Environmental history: any record of an underground storage tank, a prior oil-to-gas conversion, or a known contaminated site nearby. In houses of this age a buried tank is worth asking about specifically, and remediation is not a small cost.
6. Insurance availability and pricing for the actual house before the inspection period ends — roof age, electrical type, plumbing material and prior claims all drive it, and in older stock a policy can be declined or surcharged on any one of them.
7. A full inspection scoped to the age of the house: structure and foundation, roof, electrical service and branch wiring, heating and its fuel source, supply and waste plumbing, drainage and grading, and a sewer lateral scope. On a hundred-year-old house the lateral is worth the extra appointment.

Where those records come from

• Township of Montclair — Government departments (building, planning, historic preservation, parking, finance) https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments
• Township of Montclair — Tax and Property Assessment Q&A https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Finance-and-Taxes/Tax-and-Property-Assessment-QA
• FEMA Flood Map Service Center — official flood zone for a specific address https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home
• NJ Department of Environmental Protection — DataMiner (site and contamination records) https://www13.state.nj.us/DataMiner
• NJ Division of Taxation — Local Property Tax https://www.nj.gov/treasury/taxation/lpt/localtax.shtml

7 Everyday logistics

Where things actually are, and where to look for the hours. Addresses and locations are stable; hours and seasons are not, so those stay as links.

The six commercial districts

• Montclair has six business and shopping districts rather than one downtown, which is why "how far to the shops" depends entirely on which part of the township a house is in. Montclair Center is the central business district and holds the parking decks and lots. Upper Montclair sits at Valley Road and Bellevue Avenue. Watchung Plaza is beside Watchung Avenue station. Frog Hollow is on Valley Road near Edgemont Park. Walnut-Grove runs along Walnut Street and extends to Grove Street. The South End has its shops and the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Garden. Walk the ones nearest a house you are considering, at the hour you would actually use them.

  verified fact — districts and locations; individual businesses and hours changechecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Business and Shopping Districts

Libraries

• The Montclair Public Library main building is at 50 South Fullerton Avenue, and the Bellevue Avenue branch is at 185 Bellevue Avenue — the latter in Upper Montclair, close to the Bellevue Plaza bus stop and Upper Montclair station.

  verified fact — addresses; check the library for current hourschecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair (cooling-center notice listing both library addresses); Library Link NJ directory

Parks and recreation

• Anderson Park, at Bellevue Avenue and North Mountain Avenue, is an Essex County park — open meadow with paved paths, beside Upper Montclair station.

  verified factchecked November 11, 2026 Essex County Parks, Anderson Park

• Edgemont Memorial Park on Valley Road has a pond, a playground and walking paths. Essex Park, at Chestnut Street and Essex Avenue, has an indoor arena, a pool and a playground. Both are township facilities.

  verified fact — facilities; access, seasons and registration varychecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Parks and Park Facilities

• Pool membership, field permits and program registration run through Recreation and Cultural Affairs and have their own seasons and deadlines. Confirm what is open to a new resident, and when registration happens, before counting on any of it.

  check before relying on itchecked November 11, 2026 Township of Montclair, Recreation and Cultural Affairs

The first week after moving

Nearly all of this runs through the township's online services page, which is the single most useful bookmark for a new Montclair resident.

1. Set up Recycle Coach for refuse and recycling pickup days at your address, including holiday delays.
2. Look up the property portal entry for your parcel — assessment, tax history and the record the township holds on the house.
3. Set up payment for taxes, water and sewer.
4. If you will park at a station or in a center, start the parking permit question with the Parking Utility early; a published price is not evidence a permit is available.
5. Register for recreation programs or pool membership in the relevant season.
6. Check the historic inventory and zoning maps if you are planning any exterior work.
7. Use the township's issue reporting for streetlights, potholes, trees and similar.

Township of Montclair, Online Services

The pages worth bookmarking

• Township of Montclair — Online Services (Recycle Coach, property portal, payments, permits, reporting) https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Online-Services
• Business and shopping districts https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Visitors/About-Montclair/Business-and-Shopping-Districts
• Parks and park facilities https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Recreation-Cultural-Affairs/Parks-and-Park-Facilities
• Montclair Public Library (current hours and branches) https://www.montclairlibrary.org/
• Parking Utility — permits, meters, decks and lots https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments/Parking-Utility
• Getting to Montclair by train or bus https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Visitors/Getting-to-Montclair/By-Train-or-Bus
• All township departments https://www.montclairnjusa.org/Government/Departments

8 Buying and selling at the same time

If your move involves selling one home and buying another, it is two transactions bolted together. That is the part that goes wrong, and the part worth a personal review.

The arithmetic that matters is not the sale price of the current house or the asking price of the next one. It is the proceeds from the sale, the purchase budget those proceeds support, and whether the two can be made to happen in an order a lender and two sellers will accept.

Montclair's own closed-sale record sharpens the problem. With a median sale-to-first-ask ratio of 123.8% and a median 14 days to contract, the sequence deserves attention before either transaction starts. These figures do not establish whether an offer with a home-sale contingency will be accepted. That depends on the specific property, competing offers and seller. A seller also needs a plan for where to move if the home goes under contract quickly.

The decision checklist

Work through these in order. Each one is a number or a decision, not a feeling.

Want the proceeds and the sequence worked out for your move? Ask us to look at it.

9 Comparison worksheet

There is no overall Montclair score here — a composite number hides the trade-off it claims to resolve. State your own priorities instead, and read the underlying facts against them.

What this guide does not know

Stated plainly, because a gap that is not named reads as a fact that was never checked.

• School performance here is one dated snapshot: district-wide Spring 2025 NJSLA mathematics for grades 3 to 5. The slide does not give tested-student counts or participation rates, so those denominators are unknown. No individual school's results, no other subject and no later assessment are included.
• The district's legacy magnet FAQ and feeder-pattern page conflict with its current school list. Placement for a specific grade and year is resolved only by the district office.
• We did not locate and verify a 2026 certified general tax rate for Montclair. The 2025 rate is used and labeled as such; this is a limit on our checking, not evidence that no 2026 rate exists.
• The Finance Committee's public meeting on budget and taxes was scheduled for November 12, 2026, after this edition. No outcome is reflected.
• No twelve-month year-over-year change in the median is stated, because the export's recorded GSMLS search does not cover the full prior twelve months. An equal-length eleven-month comparison of whole calendar months is given instead; it is the chosen window, not the only valid one.
• No price per square foot: living area is recorded on a minority of closed listings and skews to larger homes.
• The closed-sale evidence covers single-family homes only. Condominiums, co-ops and townhouses are not in this dataset.
• Inventory is one dated snapshot from October 25, 2026, and its months-of-supply ratio uses a slightly different window from the headline period. There is no inventory history and no live supply figure.
• Scheduled transit times come from official timetables. Measured door-to-door times, on-time performance and station parking availability are not established.
• How common historic-district designation, open permits or buried oil tanks are in Montclair is not measured here — only how to check a specific parcel.

Evidence and sources

Where the market figures come from, and the terms they are published under.

Definitions used throughout

sale to original ask

closed sale price ÷ the first asking price the home was listed at

sale to final ask

closed sale price ÷ the last asking price before it went under contract

above ask

strictly above; at-or-above is a different measure

days to contract

pending date − list date on the closed listing, where list ≤ pending ≤ close

contract to close

close date − pending date

sample floor

a median is published only when its own denominator is at least 10

bands

cut on closed sale price, so a band describes what a budget actually bought

Style codes

The export abbreviates style names. This guide displays the full word and records the mapping here: Bi-Level = Bi-level, Contemp = Contemporary, CustHome = Custom home, MultiFloor = Multi-floor, SplitLevel = Split level, Victrian = Victorian.