Moving to Ramot? | Imamother

amother

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 7:32 am

Our landlord sold our house, so we moved... And then a week after we moved in, our new landlord says he wants to sell our house. My brain is exploding!

We do have the financial capacity to buy something but I can't seem to find something that works in our neighborhood (we could theoretically buy the place we are living in now, but it has no outdoor area and therefore and also for other reasons it feels too cramped for a "forever home," as nice as it would be to not need to move again).

I see a lot of nice listings in Ramot.

But I hear there is a lot of traffic. If both my husband's work and my kids' schools are not in Ramot, is this a place we should not consider? Is there only one "entrance" into Ramot?

amother

Snow

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 7:37 am

Where are the schools and your husband's work? (I live in Ramot)

amother

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 7:47 am

My husband will probably be starting to work out of Jerusalem soon (Rechovot) and my kids are in school in Beitar Illit. It seems like without crazy traffic, depending on how close we would live to a bus stop with buses to Gilo, they could get to school in less than an hour—but now likely is that?

amother

Forestgreen

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 7:49 am

If your kids schools are in Beitar might I suggest buying in beitar?

happymommy12

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 7:54 am

Ramot to Beitar is really far to drive back and forth every day!! And lotssss of traffic 😬😬 unless you are willing to move them into a school closer to Ramot I wouldn’t recommend buying in Ramot and commuting them to school in Beitar..

amother

Snow

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 8:54 am

Where are you living now? Ramot is a decent commute to either Rechovot or Beitar. What's keeping you in Yerushalayim? And why do you need buses to Gilo to get to Beitar? From Ramot to Gilo by bus is a good hour and a half, could be more with the crazy roadworks going on right now. But you can get buses direct to Beitar from the central bus station which don't shlep through all of town.

amother

Snow

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 9:00 am

I can tell you that at 8am, it takes between 45 minutes and an hour just to get from Ramot to Tachana Merkazit with the roads at the moment. From Ramot to Gilo on either a 71 or a 31 it will take minimum an hour and a half, likely nearer 2 hours. Very often in the morning, the roads are backed up all the way towards Givat Zeev. Once they finish building the train tracks, maybe it will be quicker but who knows how long that will take?

My girls are in school near Sanhedria. It's quicker to walk than to bus at the moment.

chanchy123

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 10:09 am

If you’re set on JLM why not buy in Gili? There are relatively reasonably pretty priced places there?
However, Beitar would be the obvious choice if it kids learn there and husband works in Rechovot,

camp123

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 10:11 am

why not move to beitar or rechovot. You'll get more for your money there and at least someone won't have a crazy commute.

essie14

Mon, Sep 05 2022, 11:06 am

Ramot is in Northern Jerusalem and Beitar is south of Jerusalem , the commute would be crazy. Would you switch your kids schools?
If your husband works in Rehovot why do you want to stay in Jerusalem ? There are many nice neighborhoods in Rehovot.

salt

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 5:03 am

I would suggest buying in Beitar.
Is there a special reason why your kids are in school in Beitar? Have you been living there till now?

If you prefer Jerusalem, buy in Gilo - Gilo alef is becoming charedi. Other areas are more mixed.
Or if you prefer more dati-leumi look at Har Choma.

But Ramot is north Jerusalem, the drive across Jerusalem to get to Beitar would be very long.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 6:23 am

amother OP wrote:

The commute will be over an hour in both directions. Thats very far and lots of traffic in the morning and afternoon times.
And is there a school bus for them? if not you will either have to drive them, if you have a car, and if not, its going to be at least 2 buses, nothing straight.

Where are you living now?

SG18

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 7:23 am

Is it legal to break the rental contract like this?

ichbingreit

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 10:59 am

It’s cute how everyone is suggesting to buy in beitar cause it’s cheaper…when was the last time you checked the market? Ramot is cheaper than beitar….

amother

Forestgreen

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 11:05 am

ichbingreit wrote:

It’s cute how everyone is suggesting to buy in beitar cause it’s cheaper…when was the last time you checked the market? Ramot is cheaper than beitar….

Depends on which part of beitar and which part of ramot, and what your willing to spend vs. what you get. Some parts of Ramot are insanely expensive, far higher than Beitar. But either way- no one is telling her to move to beitar cuz its cheaper, we're telling her to move to beitar because thats where her kids are in school and the shlep is awful.

amother

Snow

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 11:39 am

I live in Ramot. It is not cheaper than Beitar unless you are prepared to live on the 4th floor in a 2 bedroom which was built 40 yrs ago and leaks when it rains. A standard 3 bedroom, not too big will hit 2million at least. And OP said she wants out of door space so add on another 800,000.

If she wants to join the more American community in Ramot Bet you are talking minimum 3 million for what she wants.

ichbingreit

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 12:37 pm

A decent 2 bedroom in beitar is also hitting two mil. At least. 2.2/2.3 is the going rate

amother

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 3:11 pm

To answer and clarify a bit: We did consider living in Beitar but it doesn't seem like a good option for us for reasons that I'd rather not get deeply into here (don't want to make public too many details of my identity)... But the primary one in short is that for me socially and just living I don't think I would be happy there, though my husband and kids would likely be fine and obviously for my kids they would have a shorter commute (though from various parts of Beitar to their school could still be half an hour in the mornings).

Now for the past few years we've been living in various apartments in southern Jerusalem. We actually just moved to a place that is directly on the Beitar bus line and we love the convenience of that for my kids. (Previously they did have to to take two buses to go to school, and for some of them that was no problem and for some it was hard to switch buses and deal with the potential stresses of that.) I also drove my younger kids often. It was a part-time job, honestly. Hopefully coming to an end as a daily thing for me within the next year or two, as my kids get older.

However, a) we have not found a place to buy. So many places that are just strange construction, no windows in some of the rooms etc. just can't see myself living here for the next 30 years. b) We also have not found ourselves socially in our current neck of the woods.

With the landlord selling the place we just moved into, on top of generally feeling a sense of urgency to buy and really NOT wanting to move again, I feel like I need to think out of the box! Hence considering Ramot.

I feel like maybe in Ramot where there are more English speakers and generally perhaps more like-minded people it would go better... (Like, I already know one or two people who live there! I know absolutely no one in our current neighborhood... When we left our previous apartment, I had literally no one to say goodbye to other than our downstairs neighbor.)

Basically we landed where we are now based solely on considerations for my kids' and husband's commute (which kind of makes sense considering it was the height of COVID), and didn't consider community or type of housing available at all. But now I am starting to really long to feel settled in those aspects.

As far as changing my kids' schools--if I was starting over again, there are some schools closer to Ramot that would work for us, probably. We actually wanted to check some of them out but at the time that we moved, mid-COVID, it was impossible. So we put them where we put them because we needed to move fast before the start of the school year and the schools seemed good, and we've been happy with that choice even though we ultimately didn't settle in Beitar. Now they are doing really well where they are after a rocky start in Israel and I don't want to rock the boat for them.

I see from the comments here that the commute might be really intolerable for them. I am trying to figure this out though--why does Google maps seem to think (from some addresses that I picked randomly of houses available on Yad2) that it would take an hour or less with a departure time at 7:30 AM?

And as far as going from the central bus station--that seems like it would be really extra trafficky? Not even sure the Beitar buses go there. Google maps seems to recommend changing in Gilo.

As far as moving to Rechovot--my husband and some of my kids really cannot tolerate heat. (I don't like it either, but they get physically nauseous and sick.) My husband would rather commute an hour each way than live in Rechovot without Jerusalem's cooling breezes at night. And at this point--I wouldn't want to uproot my kids.

I hope that gives a little context. I appreciate all of your feedback!

amother

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 3:25 pm

Actually... playing around on Moovit now... I see there are some buses that go direct from Tzomet Ramot in the mornings to where my kids' schools are Beitar. Obviously you need to be close to Tzomet Ramot to take advantage of that, but still--they are predicted to take 30 minutes? What am I missing here?

ETA--I do see that those direct buses don't run in the afternoons when my kids would need to be returning home. But still, the routes Moovit is giving are all in the range of 50 minutes to an hour, including one transfer. So: Is Moovit misinformed, is it likely to take longer in practice?

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Sep 06 2022, 3:56 pm

amother OP wrote:

It will not take you 30 minutes from ramot to beitar, no way at all. I worked in ramot a few years ago and I came from the gush, so same highways youd take for your kids to school.
Just the road once you leave ramot until you get to the highway can take 20 minutes. There is insane traffic outside of ramot into town or the high way. And there is a lot of traffic into the gush toward beitar, add on more traffic. It can take up to 1.5 hours the whole trip. My husband works in jerusalem, center, and it sometimes takes him over an hour to get in to work. SO it will not take 50 minutes or 30. And this is for both directions. Moovit or waze may say 30 minutes. And that could be with NO traffic at all. But there is never no traffic at your starting point and into the tunnels towards beitar.