Roots and Results: My Leonia Story

I moved to Leonia when I was three years old. I have no memory of living anywhere else first.

This is the town where I learned to ride a bike, walked to school, and figured out how a small borough actually works.

After high school I left. College, career, the usual path. I lived in other places for a while. In 2012 I came back, with my wife and our three daughters. We raised all three of them here. They walked the same streets I walked and played at Wood Park, same as I did.

That is the whole reason I know this town the way I do. Not from a listing sheet. From living here twice, thirty years apart.

Here is what that is actually worth to you, and what it is not.

What Leonia Actually Is

Leonia is a small, dense borough with unusually good access to Manhattan. Everything below is verifiable, and I have linked the sources at the bottom.

The borough sits in southeastern Bergen County between Fort Lee and Englewood. The U.S. Census Bureau puts the population at 9,441 as of July 1, 2025, across 1.52 square miles.

The commute is the structural feature. The George Washington Bridge is roughly ten minutes away. NJ Transit bus 166 runs from Broad Avenue to the Port Authority. The Edgewater ferry terminal is about a five minute drive for anyone who wants to cross on the water instead of the bridge. Three separate routes into Manhattan from a borough of a square and a half.

Overpeck County Park sits at the borough's edge, with walking trails, sports fields, a lake with kayak launches, and a county dog run.

Broad Avenue is the commercial spine. Leonia Day happens in May.

Our daughters went through Leonia Public Schools. I will name the district and stop there. For enrollment figures, program offerings, and performance data, go to the district website and the New Jersey Department of Education school performance reports. I am not the right source for that, and neither is any other agent. Pull the primary data yourself.

Small borough, three commute options, one park at the edge. That is the shape of it.

The Housing Stock Is Mixed, and That Matters

Leonia is not a one-product market, which is why a single price-per-square-foot number will mislead you here.

In my own closed transactions in this borough I have sold Colonials, Cape Cods, Splits, Ranches, a Bi-Level, a Contemporary, a Duplex, and a condominium. Colonials are the largest single group by a wide margin, but they are not the whole picture, and the outliers do not price like the Colonials do.

A Cape Cod on a deep lot and a Split on a corner are different products competing for different buyers. Treating them as interchangeable comparables is the most common pricing error I see here.

What 35 Closings Actually Tell You

I have been licensed since 1993. Per NJMLS records, I have closed 35 Leonia transactions.

The days on market tell you more than the dollar figures do.

Half of these homes closed inside two and a half weeks. Some took months.

The 178 day sale is in that table on purpose. I could have left it out and the numbers would look cleaner. But it is the most useful line in the set, because it is what happens when a price is set above what the market will carry. The home does not get discovered later. It gets stale, and then it sells for less than it would have on day one.

That is the whole argument for pricing correctly at launch, and I would rather show you the evidence than assert it.

Why Any of This Matters to You

Knowing a town is not the same as pricing a home in it. The first one is nice. The second one is the job.

What living here gives me is context. I know which blocks have deeper lots. I know how the commuter options actually work at seven in the morning versus how they look on a map. I know what the housing stock is made of, because I have sold most of the styles in it.

What I will not do is tell you what kind of person belongs here. That is not my call, it is not lawful for me to make, and it is not useful to you.

I will give you the property, the numbers, and the verifiable facts about the borough. You decide whether it fits your life.

If you want the numbers on your own home first, start with a home valuation. If you want the borough detail, the full Leonia town guide covers commuting, amenities, and local information in one place.

Watch: Roots and Results

The short film below covers the same ground in about three and a half minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Resources and Further Reading

• U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: Leonia borough, New Jersey — population and land area, July 1, 2025 estimate
• NJ Transit — bus 166 route and schedule information
• Bergen County, New Jersey — Overpeck County Park information and hours
• New Jersey Department of Education — school performance reports
• Closing data from the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service, Town = Leonia, MLS Status = Sold, 35 of 35 results, pulled August 8, 2026

Call to Action

If you are thinking about buying or selling in Leonia, I would start with a conversation, not a listing appointment. Bring your questions. I will bring the data.

Scott Selleck, Broker / Sales Associate, The Selleck Group at KW City Views Realty. Licensed since 1993. Serving Leonia, Fort Lee, Englewood, Edgewater, Cliffside Park, and the rest of Bergen and Hudson Counties.

2200 Fletcher Avenue, Suite 502, Fort Lee, NJ 07024
Cell: (201) 970-3960 | Office: (201) 592-8900
scott@sellecksellsnj.com | SelleckSellsNJ.com
NJ Real Estate Broker / Sales Associate License #9236275

Equal Housing Opportunity. Keller Williams City Views Realty. Each office is independently owned and operated.