Home Sweet...House?

January 15, 2008

When we initially considered the subject of home-buying, we weren't sure what we'd be able to manage in terms of the type of property we could own. We both wanted a house -- we grew up in one, and our various apartments have felt like little concrete hives by comparison -- but we weren't sure if we'd have to settle for a condo, co-op, or townhouse in terms of affordability. We recognize that there are many people in the world who would be perfectly thrilled with a condo, co-op, or townhouse, mind you, and that's cool -- but our need for a house can be summed up in two words: "detached" (no more abrupt thuds, screaming fights, booming bass, and neglected alarm clocks emanating from the walls, floor, and ceiling, thank you!) and "backyard" (we crave the luxury of being able to eat outside during nice weather and not compete with others for a meager patch of grass -- and what a joy it would be to eventually have a dog, too!). Sure, houses require more maintenance. But it's a labor of love when the house you're maintaining is truly yours. Plus, much of that maintenance can get thrown into the equity hopper.

We did quite a bit of preliminary poking around on Realtor.com, and it seems like buying a detached, single-family home in decent condition within our price range may in fact be feasible -- if challenging. So that's what we're shooting for.

The next question was where in NJ to move. Luckily, we were able to conduct the majority of that research online. We consulted CNN/Money's Best Places to Live web site (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/), Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/), and a NJ Transit rail map to focus our search. Our criteria were:
* Median home prices below a certain cutoff figure
* Crime rates no higher than those of the town where I grew up
* No more than an hour and a half's commute to our current jobs door-to-door
* A train stop in town, without the need for a bus transfer
* Availability of green space and parks
* No major highways running through the middle of town
* An organic grocery store within no more than 15 minutes' drive
* At least 10 listings within our price range on Realtor.com

My hubby used his mad data processing skillz to generate a list of candidates, and we managed to narrow it down to six finalists: Bloomfield, Fair Lawn, Hawthorne, Maplewood, Union, and West Orange. At that point, it was just a matter of physically visiting them -- there's only so much you can know about a place without personally going there. So we made arrangements to rent a car and explore them over the weekend, wondering what insights awaited us.