Dumont, N.J.: A Modest Town Where $500,000 Still Goes a Long Way

Many of the home buyers who find their way to this unassuming Bergen County borough are budget-conscious New Yorkers.

At the main crossroads in Dumont, in northern New Jersey, stands a sandstone Reformed church dating to the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Just up Washington Avenue, a Revolution-era homestead survives as the public library. Next to the freight-train tracks is a diner thought to be the oldest in the state.

Dumont, an unassuming borough of two square miles, values its history and relative anonymity.

Lots of people dont know about Dumont because it isnt near highways or advertised on highway signs, said Indira Monegro, 42, a registered nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, who moved to town last year. When I tell people where I live, they ask, Where the heck is that?

Ms. Monegro and her husband, Jose Monegro, 43, a professional D.J., are like many buyers who find their way to Dumont: budget-conscious New Yorkers. The couple and their two sons previously rented an apartment in the Bronx. They looked at more than 50 houses in Bergen County, where Mr. Monegro has relatives, before paying $420,000 for a well-tended three-bedroom Cape Cod a block from the combined elementary-middle school that their younger son now attends.

In Dumont, the family has found an ethnically diverse community that is also so close-knit that Mr. Monegro has grown his handyman sideline beyond his expectations. After we moved in, I was building our shed and a neighbor asked if I could do work at his house, he said. Now Ive worked in more than 100 homes in town. Word travels like wildfire here.