There's a Place for Us...

January 1, 2008

For the past year, my sweetie and I have been looking for a place to call home. Not just in a "home is where you hang your hat" kind of way -- I'm talking about somewhere more permanent, a place that is truly OURS. A family HQ, even though the "family" in question consists of only two homo sapiens, and will stay that way, as per our intention. (But that's not to say we don't plan to nurture any living beings -- down the line, the idea is to start adding members of canis and/or felis domesticus to the mix.)

Our current base of operations in NYC just hasn't been cutting it. New York, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways (and I speak for both hubby and me here):

* It's an extreme environment -- NYC is too crowded (gotta love taking literally 15 minutes just to travel a couple of blocks), too noisy (no matter where you are, there's always a din of some sort), and too dirty (I don't care what anyone says about the city having been "cleaned up" in the past few years...I'm still coming across plenty of litter, grime, graffiti, puke, and pee in my daily travels).

* It's disaster-prone -- In the past six years, we've endured no fewer than FOUR city-wide crises. First, the tragedy of 9/11/01 (which unfortunately happened right on my sweetie's birthday), then the blackout of 8/14/03 (which brought the entire city to a grinding halt, The Day the Earth Stood Still-style), then the city-wide transit strike of 12/20/05 (during which we ended up having to commute to NJ and back again in order to get to work), and most recently the subway flood of 8/8/07 (which resulted in my getting to work 2.5 hours late). Seems to happen about once every two years, almost like clockwork.

* It's full of undesirables -- Fundies bellowing in your ear (in multiple languages!), hobos rattling cups of change in your face (and peeing wherever they happen to be standing), toddlers throwing screaming fits next to you, teens broadcasting their state of mind (or mindlessness) at full volume, frat boys throwing up on the train after imbibing one too many, crazies ranting in your general direction, blasts of hip-hop thundering from passing cars and boom boxes on the subway -- you name it.

* It's a threat to work-life balance -- Anyone who's seen The Devil Wears Prada knows what I'm talking about. While not all of us grapple with situations quite as skewed as that one, there is more than a grain of truth to it that speaks to many NYC denizens. And to some extent, that's inherent to a place where people come from all over the world to pursue their dreams of reaching the top of their fields. But it doesn't mean we have to like it -- especially since we're not particularly bent on reaching the apex of the career ladder.

* It's hella expensive -- Soaring rents make building a savings -- even for people who would be considered solidly middle class -- a Herculean feat. Even the outermost reaches of Manhattan, where we currently live (it takes close to an hour to get to work, and to just about everywhere else we want to go for that matter) are experiencing population surges at an alarming rate as the masses are driven farther and farther from the city center. Within just the past five years, it's gotten to the point where the subway arrives at our stop (only the third one from the beginning of the line) standing-room-only. The last straw for us in this regard came this past November, when new management took over our building *just as* our lease expired (what luck -- not!). Of course, the first thing they did was to issue gigantic rent hikes to everyone for whom they could legally get away with it. The new manager initially tried to impose a 50% (yes, five-zero!) rent increase on our unit, but I talked him down to "only" a 25% increase. However, because he was giving us "such a discounted rate," the term of our new lease is for only eight months instead of a year.

* It's got no soul -- Ordinary citizens aren't the only ones who are suffering from astronomical rents. Commercial rents are even worse. Consequently, many stores can afford to occupy only tiny spaces, resulting in a limited selection of merchandise at each. The net result is that it may take an individual consumer looking for a simple item close to all day to find it, in the process of traipsing around from one store and one part of town to the next (it's pointless to call ahead of time in most cases, since the majority of people who answer the phone in NYC retail barely speak English and/or are clueless about their inventory -- another complaint I'd add to the list). Commercial rents have gotten so bad over the past few years that most of our favorite establishments have been forced to close, and even the so-called funky part of town is completely unrecognizable from what it was just a few years ago. Luxury high-rises, corporate hotels, chain stores, and banks are devouring the city. With each passing year, there is less and less to justify the sacrifices we make to live here.

The writing is on the wall: New York City is not a sustainable ecosystem. Must. Leave. Now.

Our quest to relocate has taken us to some interesting places. Our first stop, in February 2007, was the Research Triangle area in North Carolina. On paper, it seemed to represent an ideal blend of qualities -- low cost of living, high salaries, lots of green space, a slower pace of life, warmer weather, and an intellectual and cultural elite courtesy of Research Triangle Park itself and UNC-Chapel Hill. In actuality, however, what we found was an inescapable proliferation of strip malls, pathetic public transit, cramped, cookie-cutter subdivisions, a mere three blocks of unique retail establishments, and little if any non-religious activity on Sundays. Traveling on the freeway was essential to get just about anywhere.

Next, in May 2007, we visited Portland, Oregon -- and loved it. It offered so much of what we wanted: widespread eco-consciousness, a vibrant artistic community, an abundance of flora and natural beauty, a clearly visible concentration of independently-minded small businesses, and gorgeous weather during the summer with relatively consistent temperatures year-round. What it did *not* offer, however, was affordable housing (we were shocked to see that housing prices there were comparable to what one would find on the East coast) and sufficient job availability and pay (in fact, Portland has been experiencing negative job growth for years, and isn't big enough to broadly offer salary levels even close to what we've grown accustomed to in NYC, which makes the high housing costs all the more surprising). Furthermore, we had to face the reality of the fact that the multi-hour plane flight each way to and from Detroit/New York would make it difficult (and expensive) to see our families, not to mention the tremendous hassle and financial burden of lining up jobs in advance and transporting all our stuff cross-country. And given that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, would it really be wise for me to move to a place where it rains nine months of the year? Perhaps not.

Recognizing that distance from our families needed to play a more significant role in our relocation decision, we decided to stick to places a lot closer to home -- i.e., within no more than 2-2.5 hours' driving distance from my parents.

Philly seemed like a reasonable candidate -- relatively nearby, a little less expensive and less stressful than NYC, and within easy reach of the natural beauty that Pennsylvania is known for. We'd also spent one of our best vacations there, at a bed-and-breakfast called The Gaskill House (from which, I must confess, we ventured out for only brief periods of time). When we visited there in November 2007, however, we were profoundly underwhelmed. No matter where we went in the city, it had a certain eerie, deserted quality to it -- like a ghost town in the making (which was supported by what we'd read in a recent Pew Charitable Trusts report describing its negative job growth, ailing real estate market, ineffective city government, and high crime rate). It was also ubiquitously dingy (much like NYC) and short on compelling destinations apart from American-history-related tourist attractions.

Our visit to South Street, which had been described to us as a haven of bohemian funkiness, was perhaps the most disappointing -- on the Sunday we went, not a single store was open, and even if one had been, it might not have mattered. The area was dominated by hip-hop clothing retailers, lingerie shops, hair and nail salons, and chain stores, interspersed with maybe one or two galleries displaying extremely bad art. I think the word I'm looking for here is "seedy." Driving around elsewhere in the city, it felt empty and depressing. Even the surrounding suburbs left much to be desired -- either they completely lacked a downtown of any kind, or they were bland beyond belief, or they were surrounded by malls and freeways -- or all three. Next!

Our final trip for 2007 was to New Haven, Connecticut, in December. We'd heard great things about it from several of our friends who'd visited or lived there, particularly about how much it had improved in its safety, economic health, and cultural offerings since its dark days back in the early '90s and prior, and about its affordability compared to other East Coast cities. My friends' testimony was corroborated by a Connecticut travel guide we'd picked up from B&N, which proffered another tantalizing morsel: a 45-minute express train to and from Grand Central, which meant that we wouldn't have to line up new jobs in advance of moving there. It seemed like New Haven might be The Next Big Thing in terms of a city with real future prospects -- and a sound investment for those buying real estate while it was still relatively off the radar.

All of these things are probably in fact true -- we actually liked the area quite a lot (great restaurants and local produce, the majestic stone construction and gothic spires of the academic buildings on the Yale campus surrounded by a generous expanse of campus green, some interesting stores, ease of walkability around town, and a classic New England feel to the entire area) -- but we did discover one huge inaccuracy: no express train. Once we were back in NYC with access to the web, we learned that apparently there had been an attempt to introduce a high-speed Amtrak Acela train there some years ago, but the train's speed ended up exceeding the limits imposed by its physical architecture, leading to safety issues -- it actually started losing structural integrity once it accelerated past a certain point -- so it had to be ratcheted down to an hour and a half maximum. Clearly the author's optimism about the train's early possibilities obscured the facts. Just goes to show, you can't always believe what you read in books -- even good ones. Commuting to and from our current jobs on an expensive line like the Acela wouldn't be feasible on a daily basis, and the alternative 2-hour trip each way on Metro-North was still daunting from a timing and financial point of view.

Fresh from our massive rent hike in November and from a conversation with my father immediately following it, we decided to make it our top priority to buy a residence, and buy soon. No more remaining mired down by the vicious circle of renting, which packs a triple punch of high expense and limited ability to save, lack of tax deductibility, and no equity. Trying to line up jobs in New Haven or the surrounding area prior to moving there -- and making sure they were jobs we could feel truly good about (and in my case, travel to via public transit) -- would delay our ability to immediately acquire property and to end our feudalistic relationship with our landlord. The only way it seemed logical to proceed in terms of moving out of NYC was to go somewhere where we could still get to our current jobs without too much hassle, stay at them temporarily until we were settled and in a position to job-hunt outside of the city, and finally cut the cord to NYC once we had successfully attained employment elsewhere. Unfortunately, we were going to need to wean ourselves from the city more gradually than we had initially planned.

That limited us to the tri-state area: New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. But how could we possibly swing it? It's so expensive, and the ridiculous cost of living was one of the things driving us out of this area in the first place.

Then at the end of December, five things changed our potential buying power:

1. I found out from my mom that you can use up to $10,000 of your IRA toward a down payment for a first-time home purchase without an early withdrawal penalty. Imagine -- a government rule that's actually HELPFUL!

2. I got a promotion and a big fat raise (13%) at the very end of the year at work, woohoo!

3. My hubby is eligible for a VA loan, which could be a sweet, sweet deal if we don't discover any drawbacks to that option in the process of researching it. It requires very little or nothing in the way of a down payment and no private mortgage insurance (which is usually mandatory for down payments of less than 20%), tends to offer lower interest rates than conventional loans, and is relatively simple in terms of processing the paperwork.

4. Both interest rates and property values have significantly dropped, which may work in our favor since that makes it a buyer's market. It may actually be *cheaper* for us to buy than to keep paying our exorbitant rent increase!

5. My mom said she'd contribute a combination of a gift and a loan, probably enough to cover our closing costs, bless her!

So all of a sudden, the impossible now seemed possible (if still difficult).

Where would we go? New York was right out, because it was too closely within the orbit of the city and too dependent on its economy, and therefore not conducive to our eventual goal of eliminating our reliance on it. Besides, upstate is much too cold, and downstate is much too expensive. We found that potentially appealing towns in Connecticut were either ludicrously beyond our means financially or too cumbersome and time-consuming of a commute to our current jobs.

So that left New Jersey. This conclusion was somewhat ironic -- that's where I grew up, and I felt kind of like a salmon returning to the place where it was spawned, rather than forging a new path into the wide world beyond and continuing along that trajectory -- but, I conceded, this was not necessarily a bad thing, for the following reasons:

* Since it's the devil I know, I have a better idea of what to expect and can therefore operate more efficiently.

* I have family and friends there, which certainly helps when establishing oneself in a particular area.

* While it remains within the orbit of NYC and is somewhat dependent on the abundance of employment offered by the city, it has an economy and job opportunities in its own right (which we hope to avail ourselves of later).

* From an investment standpoint, it's a wise move. Since it's an economically robust state with a world-class international city nearby, we are almost guaranteed to see our home make significant gains in equity in relatively little time, even accounting for occasional economic slowdowns -- especially if we live close to an NYC-bound train line.

* NJ offers a variety of natural treasures like mountains, woods, and beaches.

So, New Jersey ho! The next step is just figuring out WHERE to live and WHAT KIND OF HOME to buy.