6. How Paramus Compares

Most Paramus buyers are also looking at Ridgewood, Fair Lawn, Glen Rock, Oradell, River Edge or Washington Township. This table puts the seven towns side by side on the things that can be measured the same way for all of them. Every row uses one source for all seven towns, so the comparison is fair even where the number is unflattering. Paramus wins some rows and loses others, and the ones it loses are marked as plainly as the ones it wins.

The comparison

Sale prices, tax bills and bill growth: New Jersey Division of Taxation, 2024 and 2025 Average Residential Statistics; the sale price is the average of the Division's usable-sale sample for each town (count in parentheses), not a median and not every sale. Effective rates: Division of Taxation, 2025 General Tax Rates. Assessment ratios: Division of Taxation, Certification of Average Ratios for Tax Year 2026. Revaluation list: Bergen County Board of Taxation, January 7, 2026; the Board's list does not separate revaluations from reassessments. Per-pupil spending: each district's 2026-27 User Friendly Budget as filed with the NJ Department of Education (budgetary cost per pupil, 2024-25 actual). Rail, parking and bus: NJ Transit and each borough, as cited in Section 16. Water: Jersey WaterCheck system profile and The Ridgewood Market Report, Sections 16 and 18. Offense counts and rates: FBI Crime Data Explorer, calendar 2025, as reported in Section 11. A dagger (†) marks a figure from a secondary source; confirm it before you rely on it. The Paramus sale price in the first row is an average and the one in the last row is a median, from different sources; they are not expected to match.

On the crime rows: 971 of Paramus's 1,046 property offenses in 2025 (92.8 percent) were larceny-theft, the category that includes shoplifting. Offenses are counted where they happen, including stores, mall parking decks and highways, while the rate divides by residents only, so Paramus's per-resident rate is not comparable with a residential town's (Section 11). Fair Lawn reported 7 of 12 months in 2025 and is not rated.

How to read it

On price, Paramus is the second most expensive of the seven by average sale, behind Ridgewood. Glen Rock averages about 16 percent less, Oradell about 23 percent less, and Fair Lawn about half. A buyer who started in Fair Lawn or River Edge and is looking at Paramus is moving up a price tier, and should know it before the first showing. Part of the Paramus average is new construction: one sale in five here now closes at $2 million or more (Section 3), which most of these towns do not have in that volume.

On taxes, Paramus wins the row that matters to a buyer. At the same $1,150,000 price, Paramus costs $16,491 a year to hold at 2025 effective rates. The next cheapest are Washington Township and Ridgewood at about $22,350. Glen Rock and River Edge are near $28,000. That is $5,850 to $11,800 a year, every year, and it comes from the commercial base on Routes 4 and 17 that the other six towns do not have (Section 9).

Paramus loses the row beside it. Its average residential bill rose 8.0 percent between 2024 and 2025, the fastest of the seven and seven times Ridgewood's 1.1 percent. The rate fell and the bill rose, because Paramus resets every assessment every year and house values have been rising faster than mall and office values.

What this means for you
The Paramus tax advantage is real and large, and it is narrowing a little each year. Budget on the bill growing 5 to 8 percent a year, not 2 (Section 9).

Paramus does not have the lowest average bill, either. Fair Lawn's is $12,418, because Fair Lawn's houses cost half as much. If your question is "which town has the smallest tax bill", the answer is Fair Lawn. If it is "which town taxes a given house least", the answer is Paramus.

The assessment row tells you who has a correction coming. Paramus, River Edge and Oradell carry assessments at 89 to 93 percent of market value. Ridgewood, Fair Lawn, Glen Rock and Washington Township are at 57 to 63 percent, and all four appear on the County Board's revaluation and reassessment lists for 2026 or 2027. In those towns the bill on a listing sheet can change sharply in one year for a recent buyer. In Paramus it moves every year in smaller steps. Neither is free; they are different kinds of risk.

Paramus spends the most per pupil of every district in the table, $23,990 in 2024-25 (audited actual) against $19,713 in Ridgewood; the 2026-27 budgets put the two at $26,695 and $21,796 (Section 10). Per-pupil spending is a cost figure, not a quality figure, and it belongs in a tax conversation more than a schools conversation: it is one reason the total school levy rose 4.9 percent for 2026-27 (5.0 percent for the general fund alone). Section 10 shows where the money goes, which is mostly staffing. Oradell, River Edge and Washington Township do not run their own K-12 systems, so their rows are not like-for-like with the other four: an Oradell or River Edge household pays into an elementary district and a regional one, and Washington Township shares a district with Westwood.

On the commute, Paramus and Washington Township are the only two of the seven without a train station. A Paramus rail commuter drives to another town's station and pays that town's non-resident price where it sells permits at all: $480 a year at New Bridge Landing, $1,200 at Glen Rock, $1,500 at Radburn, and nothing at Oradell, which does not sell to non-residents. A Fair Lawn resident pays $120 a year at Radburn for the same space. What Paramus has in exchange is the largest set of direct buses to Port Authority and the GWB Bus Station of the seven, and three highways (Section 16).

On water, Paramus, Oradell and River Edge share a utility, so the PFAS treatment cost for the Haworth plant that Section 19 describes as still unpriced will fall on all three. Ridgewood and Glen Rock customers are already paying a treatment surcharge to Ridgewood Water. At the same use, the annual bills are close: about $1,030 in Paramus against $1,008 in Ridgewood (Section 19).

Crime figures for all seven towns are in the table above and in Section 11, with the reason Paramus's per-resident rates cannot be compared directly with residential towns.

Where Paramus wins and loses, in one list

• Wins: effective tax rate; tax on a given price; no deferred revaluation; Port Authority bus service.
• Loses: growth in the tax bill; per-pupil cost; no train station and non-resident parking prices; entry price against five of the six peers.
• Even or not directly comparable: water cost at equal use; offense rates. Days on market against peers comes in the next edition.

What the next quarterly edition adds

The peer-town median sale price and days-on-market row, from the same NJMLS closed-sales method used for Paramus in Section 3, so that the seven towns can be compared on how competitive they are and not only on what they cost. And 2026 tax rates, which the Division of Taxation had not published as of October 3, 2026.

What I tell my buyers: decide which row you are buying. If it is the train, Paramus is the wrong town and Glen Rock, Fair Lawn or River Edge is the right one, and you will pay about $8,800 to $11,800 a year more in tax on the same price for it. If it is carrying cost, nothing in this table comes close to Paramus. I live here and I do not pretend the 8 percent line is not on the table; I plan around it.

† Figures marked with a dagger are best-effort research, so verify them with the issuing office (the Borough of Paramus, the school district, the county, the state or the utility) before making judgment calls or decisions on them.