And the winner is...

January 21, 2008

...lovely Maplewood, NJ. After touring around various towns all weekend, I finally understood why people shop for neighborhoods first and properties second. Previously, I had naively believed that the ease of finding affordable housing would be the primary factor driving our choice of locale. NOT TRUE.

Maplewood stood so far out from its competitors that it was a near-epiphany. What we LOVE about it that we've rarely, if ever, seen elsewhere:

* An honest-to-goodness, walkable downtown, affectionately referred to as "the village," offering a wide variety of goods and services (including an independent bookstore and a branch of Kings, one of my favorite gourmet supermarket chains) in all price ranges

* An incredible train station smack in the middle of downtown -- with an indoor waiting area, even! The transition walls are covered in colorful murals, and the inside is well heated and immaculately clean (including the restrooms -- we checked!). There's a coffee bar, as well as a concierge where you can not only ask for information, but also have errands run for you, buy tickets for local events such as First Night, pay your municipal bills, and numerous other conveniences. Far out!!! There's also a book exchange, where people drop off their used books and take the equivalent number from the shelf in return. Supercool!!!

* Well maintained, appealing homes and front yards within a fairly wide radius of downtown

* A huge and beautiful local park filled with trees, and paved with a path sporting little lights alongside it for ease of navigation and increased safety during the evening

* Close proximity to South Mountain Reservation, a vast state park

* A local rag, Matters Magazine (http://www.mattersmagazine.com/), specifically for residents of Maplewood and directly adjacent South Orange

* A sense of community pride unlike any I've encountered anywhere -- no joke, you could feel it in the air. Just as an example, the employees at Kings were dressed like hotel bellhops, as opposed to simply donning the standard white aprons we see at nearly every other supermarket.

* A highly organized and well located real estate office, at which an agent was able to immediately hand us a clear plastic document carrier filled to the brim with information about the town -- a directory of local businesses, articles about Maplewood from various publications (including New Jersey magazine, which hailed it as one of the best places to live in NJ)...even a train schedule to NYC (the train runs on weekends, too).

* Ohmigod, did I mention the train station??? :-)

While I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that I'd live in a hut there if I had to, it was an incredibly eye-opening experience in terms of my own priorities regarding location. It will be tough to find an affordable house in good condition within a 15-minute walk of downtown, but it's worth a shot. It's a buyer's market, and it's the dead of winter, when sellers have fewer bidders to choose from. We don't even have a Plan B as far as a runner-up town. Screw Plan B, I say!!! We're goin' for the gold here, and we'll give it everything we've got. One of my New Year's resolutions is to be more optimistic and to have more faith that things will work out, rather than assuming the worst and figuring that the things I want most are beyond my reach. This is a great time to start exercising that resolution.

So, next steps: figuring out the exact maximum we can afford to pay month-to-month for all our housing-related expenses (principal and interest from the mortgage, property taxes, and homeowner's insurance, plus the expenses of a car to get around NJ locally, taking a train to NYC in addition to the subway, and paying more for utilities), finding a mortgage lender, getting pre-approved for a loan, and lining up a realtor to finally begin showing us bona fide abodes for sale! I'm positively chomping at the bit -- I have to keep reminding myself of the importance of these prelminary steps and of not putting the cart before the horse.

I'd like to give a shout-out to my good friend Lorne Doone (http://www.blogger.com/profile/15872560737685506501), who recommended an invaluable resource to us -- Home Buying for Dummies -- which has been our bible over these past few weeks (and will continue to be throughout this whole process, I imagine). Thanks a bunch, Lorne! Stay tuned...