Notes from the Field

Yesterday, my mom drove us into Morristown so we could get an initial sense of what it was like.

It was a brisk, clear day following Saturday's torrential rain and howling wind, so the visibility was great. We mostly stuck to the commercial areas since those were the parts my mom knew, and were where it was easiest to pinpoint specific destinations.

The town presented a clean, well-kept face, with an impressive array of goods and services. It seemed comparable in size to some much larger cities we'd seen outside of New York, while still feeling very recognizably like NJ and retaining a small-town sensibility about it. We liked the fact that the office-park type areas were in a distinctly separate section from the myriad restaurants, shops, galleries, and charming cafes, which were all clustered within a very walkable downtown. One thing that particularly struck us was that even on a Sunday, there was noticeable activity in evidence, which we hadn't seen in many other places -- even Philadelphia! When I think of Morristown as we saw it yesterday, the word "happening" comes to mind. It struck us as the kind of place that would be able to stand on its own in providing real entertainment options on a Friday or Saturday night, as well as honest-to-goodness employment opportunities, rather than having to heavily rely on adjacent locales for its viability. This was something we found particularly appealing. Furthermore, we were really impressed with its branch of Kings supermarket. While not self-consciously quaint the way Maplewood's was, it was *much* bigger, with a far wider selection -- we daresay it rivals even our favorite supermarkets in NYC. We also checked out the train station. Again, it didn't present a distinctive image like Maplewood's, but it had indoor waiting areas on *both* sides of the track, rather than just one, and was spacious, clean (including the restrooms), and sensibly laid out. Trains run on weekends there, too.

We also stopped by one of the major real estate offices in town to get the name of an agent we could call, and were surprised when the person manning the desk turned out to be an agent herself. She immediately pulled up some listings on her computer corresponding to ones we'd seen online ourselves, and offered to take us to see them in three weeks' time (we can't go next weekend because I'll be out of town, and the following weekend is Easter weekend so she won't be available). We would like to have interviewed her extensively and asked for references, as we'd planned to do with any future agent we worked with, but the situation wasn't conducive to it and we were on a tight schedule. On the other hand, we figured that we could sort of interview her as we went along, rather than limiting that process to a specific time and place. And since nobody in my family had recommended her, it would be easier to extricate ourselves earlier on in the process if we weren't happy with her. That being said, we got a very positive first impression of her. She was particularly friendly, alert, and a good listener, and struck us as being more efficient than any of the realtors we'd spoken with in Maplewood. Let's hope this translates into much better service than what we got previously!

My hubby and I decided that we would use the intervening time the weekend after next to rent a car and explore some of the residential areas on our own, just to get a clear grasp of the layout and the various neighborhoods. That was a piece we didn't really have a clear understanding of during this trip, and would obviously be critical to a well-informed decision.

But based on what we've seen up to this point, our general feeling is: so far, so good.

The Defense Rests

A couple of nights ago, my hubby and I were getting ready to go to sleep but somehow still felt a little wound up from the day. Just for the fun of it, we started launching into a few Beatles tunes, singing in two-part harmony. What a blast! Until we heard a *thump thump thump* coming from somewhere in the apartment. We couldn't tell what it was or exactly where it was coming from, but it kind of broke the flow of things and, realizing it was after midnight, we ended up making an extra effort to get to sleep, which was ultimately successful.

The next morning as I was leaving the building for work, our downstairs neighbor greeted me in the hall, which I reciprocated. Just as I was halfway out the door, he added, "Sorry to knock on the ceiling last night, but the Beatles were keeping us up." I was mortified! The walls in our apartment are so thick we can barely hear each other in the next room, so this was surprising news. What else could they hear??? "I'm so sorry," I said sheepishly. "I really apolgoize." I felt terrible about it, but the mischievous part of me was also amused as heck at the same time. I figured I would slip a card under their door the next day to hopefully make amends, and that we'd keep a better eye on our volume level (and the time!) in the future.

My hubby and I never thought we would be the "bad" neighbors! But this is just one more argument for getting a house -- it seems to be in the best interests of others around us as well as our own. :-)

Off the Hook

This morning, my hubby called the realtor to apologize for the misunderstanding and relay our decision using wording we had carefully scripted together, with input from my parents, for maximum success in placating her. It seemed to work, as there were no ruffled feathers in direct evidence when they spoke. He told her we'd get back in touch when we were ready to resume searching in Maplewood, possibly looking at houses closer to the high end of our range, but that in the meantime we'd be exploring other options elsewhere, with local realtors in those areas. She was a good sport about it and told him she looked forward to hearing from us.

In the meantime, my mom kindly offered to take us into Morristown this coming Saturday afternoon and show us around so we could get a feel for it, which I'm looking forward to. We've found over and over that regardless of how good a place sounds on paper, there's no substitute for an in-person visit, so it should be interesting to see how it strikes us "in the flesh." And so a new chapter of the adventure begins!

There and Back Again

What a crazy couple of weeks it's been! Over President's Day, we brought my parents to see the house, and while they would have liked to see us in a physically larger place, a fancier part of town, and a house with more "curb appeal," they conceded that it was at least decent, given the limitations of what we could get for what we wanted to pay. My hubby and I knew the place would need some minor improvements and, eventually, a complete overhaul to the partially-finished attic, but there were no initial red flags indicating any significant structural defects prior to bringing in an inspector. We also found in looking at other listings with slightly higher asking prices, in which the houses seemed bigger at first blush, that they either had smaller rooms, smaller lots, or were in worse repair. One unique feature that this particular house offered was a yard that could potentially be developed into a second lot, if only barely. We also appreciated the fact that its roof, hot water heater, and furnace had been replaced within the past two years, and that its back deck was visibly new and solidly built.

That being said, we spent a great deal of time since then addressing some of my parents' concerns:

* The size: We acknowledged that as houses went, the place was on the small side -- with roughly the equivalent usable space of our current apartment plus a separate living room/dining room, basement, attic, front porch, deck, and garage -- but we weren't too worried about it since the apartment suits us well space-wise at the moment and we are constantly vigilant about not accumulating too much stuff. Just to make sure, though, we went back to the house the following weekend with tape measure in hand, having already measured all the furniture and large objects we owned, to make doubly sure that everything would comfortably fit within the layout of the new place and also allow a little room for a couple of new pieces of furniture. My hubby then drew up a floor plan for the first floor, second floor, and attic with all the relevant measurements, and after experimenting with a few possible arrangements, we found a layout that would perfectly accommodate all our existing possessions plus a couple of new ones.

* The neighborhood: While the immediate surrounding area seemed perfectly fine to my hubby and me, my parents were concerned about the fact that the houses in the area, while clean and well maintained, looked "low-end," and that the nearest retail businesses were somewhat exurban in nature (auto and auto parts dealerships, fast-food joints, etc.). They thought that these might translate into issues affecting the safety of the area and our ability to resell the house later on down the line.

On the same day we went back to take measurements inside the house, we walked around the neighborhood extensively (luckily it was relatively warm that day, and so wasn't much of a hardship). The other houses in all directions were well kept and respectable, and the sidewalks had all been shovelled from the recent snowfall. We even saw a few Mercedes parked in a couple of the driveways, so we figured the neighborhood couldn't possibly be as shabby as my parents had feared! We walked over to the nearest major thoroughfare in both directions and it seemed fine. While it did indeed have its share of no-frills businesses, it also had a couple of cafes and restaurants, a couple of small law offices, real estate offices, and medical practices, a catering company that prepares and delivers dinners for busy working commuters (as advertised at the train station concierge), an old-fashioned toy store, one of two branches of Maplweood's library, one of Maplewood's parks, a couple of dance, pilates, and karate studios, and a small pharmacy. There are also plans to build a new police station there, as well as NJ's flagship Whole Foods store within short driving distance. Furthermore, we saw a proliferation of really nice, newly installed sidewalk benches and street paving. (There was a big sign saying that the department of Housing and Urban Development had provided a $150,000 grant to improve the streetscape in the area, and we were also aware that a local nonprofit was actively working to bring the area up. )

To get a broader range of input, I signed up for Maplewood Online's message boards and perused them extensively. Specifically, I did a search to see what people thought of that general neighborhood, and there were many threads about it. To sum up about 3.5 hours of research, it seemed the general consensus was that people who are not familiar with the neighborhood (especially people like us who are thinking of moving into town) are a little wary of it at first (and hence, newcomers post messages to the boards asking what people think of it), but that people who actually live there are almost uniformly pleased with it and love it. Just about all of them said it was perfectly safe, even with children. Most had never experienced any crime there at all. Ironically, one recent mugging (which was apparently a total fluke for the whole town) took place in a wealtheir area, right near the train station, as someone was walking home alone. Of those who did experience some form of crime, the worst they reported were having bikes, cars, or car headlinghts stolen, probably because their car wasn't kept in their garage and/or they also didn't use a Club -- apparently people feel so safe that they often keep their house and car doors unlocked, which may also be part of the problem (we would never do that!). One person said it was a little noisy during the summer because people's kids are playing in the backyards and the houses are close together, but as far as kids loitering in the street and being noisy, that tended to happen closer to the center of town. The other theme that kept coming up over and over again was what a friendly, tight-knit community it is -- enviable compared to other parts of Maplewood, apparently, as posted by someone who moved to a more posh area and subsequently somewhat regretted it. Apparently that neighborhood association is among the most active in town and everyone watches out for each other. What I read on the message boards also seemed to confirm our general impression that this particular area was the only part of Maplewood that consistently offered housing within our price range.

While all this was going on, I had called a few attorneys who had been recommended to us by various sources to see who might be the best fit in working with us. One of them who was local to Maplewood said it was her understanding that the area in question was steadily and clearly improving, and that it was attracting an artsy, creative element which had been alluded to in the online forums I'd read.

Towards the end of this past week, we returned to the house one more time so that I could walk the block or so from the jitney drop-off point to the house at night to see how it felt in terms of the lighting, and to get a visceral, personal sense of how safe it felt, independent of anything I'd read. It seemed okay to me.

So, the neighborhood really didn't appear to be an issue of concern on closer examination.

* Appearance of the property: Our realtor came up with a few creative ways to make the house and the grounds around it look a little more inviting: putting window boxes with flowers in the front, landscaping the front and back yards, putting rocking chairs on the porch, and repainting the outside of the house.

All of us were concerned about the potential problem created by a tree on the street side of the curb right in front of the property whose roots were pushing up a couple of slabs of sidewalk so that they buckled and cracked. Clearly this wouldn't be simple to resolve, regardless of who was financially responsible for it -- and simply leaving it alone would be a recipe for disaster from a liability standpoint. I made it my business to find out exactly what addressing it would entail. After a couple of phone calls, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself transferred to the person who was effectively the Top Tree Dude for the town through the Department of Public Works. He said that because the tree was on the street side of the curb, rather than on the house side, the town would be responsible for dealing with it (which was what the local lawyer I had spoken with suspected), but that the property owner (whether buyer or seller) would need to hire a mason to remove the impacted slabs of pavement and clear away the debris so that the root could be exposed. The town would take it from there, either grinding down the root or removing the whole tree if necessary (a new one would be planted in its place if that were the case), and then the mason would either recreate the slabs or restore the old ones to put back after the work was done, which he expected to take no more than three business days. To my delight, he kindly offered to go over to the property and personally inspect it so that he could determine what it would take to solve the problem, and promptly called me back. He thought they could just grind down the root rather than having to cut down/kill the tree, and that the slabs seemed sufficiently salvageable enough that they could be restored and put back rather than completely recreated. He estimated that a mason might charge a flat fee of $500. So, while additional expenses are never welcome, this was hardly catastrophic in the grand scheme of things. His willingness to go out of his way to be helpful on such short notice and with such quick turnaround time confirmed what we'd heard about the quality of Maplewood's community.

During our visit to measure the house, our realtor also showed us another place that had just come on the market similar to the one we were considering, except that it had three full bedrooms instead of two. She really talked it up, saying she liked it better than the original one. However, when we looked at it, we found that while it had some nice features, high-grade appliances, and an extra bedroom, the three bedrooms it had were noticeably smaller than any of the bedrooms in the other place, and probably took up the same amount of space combined as the other two. The basement ceiling and pipes were so low that my hubby bumped his head twice, and the basement stairs and back deck felt like they were cheaply constructed, tending to noticeably give under our feet. The kitchen was also smaller, and there was no stair access to the attic. The roof had visible drainage problems as the snow was melting, which the other didn't. We definitely weren't interested in pursuing that one any further. As usual, our realtor's judgement in what constituted "the best" house left something to be desired.

In between all these various interactions, we attended a seminar called "Home Buying for Hipsters," which was held at the charming Huckleberry Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The workshop was interesting because it was geared pretty much exclusively toward young, first-time homebuyers like us. A lot of it was review for us, and some of it wasn't relevant because it related to New York and to co-ops/condos, but there were a few little interesting tidbits that came up. One of them was that it's better to make a smaller down payment and keep more cash on-hand for reserves. For example, putting down 10% versus 5% makes very little difference in terms of lowering the monthly payments -- only about $100 -- and when I came home and checked with an online mortgage calculator to work it out using the top end of our price range as an example since it's a round number, it turned out that what they said was correct. The other points they made were that they recommend staying at the place you buy a *bare minimum* of five years to make it worth all the closing costs, etc. (we are planning on seven to ten), said that it's really, really important not to stretch yourself too much in making monthly payments because there are always unforseen circumstances that come up (which confirmed our feeling that since this place was comfortably within our range rather than a big stretch, we should go for it), and that pretty much anything in the NY area in decent condition would be a sound investment, regardless of how small the space, as long as it was well cared for. They also said that this is the best possible time to buy historically, and that it's important that the realtor you work with be acting in your best interests (which, unfortunately, we knew ours wasn't). Luckily things are easier for buyers in NJ than NY for a number of reasons.

So, armed with all these facts and applauded by both my parents for having done our due diligence, we felt confident we could make an offer. Figuring out how much to start with was not entirely straightforward. We were well aware that it was important to use comparable market analysis (i.e., final sales) figures from other similar houses that had recently sold in the area, but there was no data available since October because nothing in that area had reached final sale beyond then, though there were apparently several pending sales. Pre-October figures suggested that the asking price was quite reasonable, but then again, those sales reflected a healthier market than what we have now. So we asked our realtor to provide sales data for ANY houses in Maplewood, of any size, at any price, in any neighborhood, that had sold since October, so that we could calculate selling price as a percentage of asking price over time. We determined that for right now, that figure was 97%, or 3% lower, so we could set our offering price at 6% lower and then meet in the middle. From what the realtor was telling us, which may or may not be accurate, Maplewood is relatively well insulated against the downturn hitting the rest of the housing market because of its close proximity to New York -- and New York is virtually immune, since the demand for housing there is only growing and, in the immortal words of one of our Hipster seminar speakers, "you can't manufacture more dirt." (We didn't realize until later that we could have compared the post-October houses for which we had data to *each other* to see if there was any similarity between their basic stats, and then determine whether there was any decline across *selling prices only* over that brief time -- good to know for future reference.)

We realized that we might have had some room to make our offer a little lower, but our realtor had told us earlier that the seller had previously rejected a low offer (though it was illegal for the seller's agent to tell us what it was, so we didn't know the amount), and we wanted to make sure we were taken seriously -- especially since it didn't seem that they were being greedy in their asking price. So, we figured we'd err on the side of being fair rather than ultra-thrifty, and subsequently come up more slowly in price during the negotiations.

So, we signed on the dotted line, and held our breath. To our relief, our realtor didn't pressure us to put in a higher bid as we had suspected she might, given that she had initially advised us to make an offer more than 3.5% higher (thus confirming our suspicions that the price we ultimately offered was a fair one, and that we couldn't necessarily trust her advice). She also invited us to stick around while she contacted the seller's agent, and managed to reach her on the phone. She did a good job of packaging us as nice, conscientious, efficient, serious, and financially responsible buyers. She also told her that she thought we were offering "a very fair price," gave her the details of the contract (which doesn't become legally binding until an agreement is reached with the seller and then completes attorney review), and when she hung up, she reported back to us that the seller's agent hadn't scoffed at our offer, which was a good sign.

To decompress a bit immediately afterwards, my hubby and I dined in downtown Maplewood at a restaurant called Cent'Anni's, where we had a delightful meal in front of a fireplace (and noted it as a great spot for future Valentine's Day and/or anniversary dinners).

I had my hubby give our realtor his cell phone number so she could relay any news once she had it, since he was more reachable on his cell than I was (I get poor cell reception at work, and there's no privacy to talk at my desk on my work landline number), and she got in touch with him the next morning to fill him in on the seller's response -- a counter-offer.

Apparently what she said and what he heard were two totally different things. The figure to which the seller was willing to come down was encouraging (and clearly understood), but then something was said about responding to potential issues arising from the forthcoming inspection that my hubby interpreted as indicating the house would be sold in "as- is" condition, with the seller claiming no responsibility for any major financial issues that the inspection report might identify. After extensive discussion amongst ourselves, with my parents and his, and with a couple of my friends -- taking fully half the weekend -- we deemed those terms totally unacceptable, shady, bad business, and a deal-killing turn-off, since that's not how the property was originally advertised and we knew that some upfront cash would be required to address several minor things we'd seen already. What was the seller hiding? Why absolve himself of responsibility so early in the process? It had "fishy" written all over it. We successfully talked ourselves out of the whole thing and felt 100% confident in our decision to walk away with no further negotiation, having utterly lost interest in the house.

I worked up the nerve to convey our thoughts to our realtor on the phone as tactfully as possible, and found myself hyperventilating as I did so because of how stressful it tends to be for me to break bad news to someone -- anyone -- and potentially disappoint them (especially after all the work we had all put into this process), trying to control myself as well as I could.

Imagine my surprise when she told me what the seller had ACTUALLY said, which was that he didn't want to be nickel-and-dimed with small, trivial repairs that needed to be made as a result of the inspection (such as a faucet washer that needed to be replaced), but that he would be willing to address any larger, significant issues that came up -- exactly the opposite of what we had understood to be the case, and a perfectly reasonable response from the seller's end. So all of a sudden, it wasn't so easy to cast him as a skummo and keep on moving; our impression of him as a relatively reasonable guy had to be reinstated, fully intact. And we had to acknowledge that the deal was proceeding on perfectly fair terms.

So then the question became: did we want to proceed with the house after all? We had done such a great job of talking ourselves out of it! We became convinced that we had time on our side to find something better, great negotiating power as high-credit buyers, and a continually falling market to bring more appealing properties closer to our reach.

And then my mom suggested that we consider exploring Morristown, throwing yet another monkey wrench into the whole process, given that we had firmly decided on Maplewood long ago. But she made a very compelling case for the advantages it could offer us:

* While farther out from NYC, it would be close to other places within NJ offering strong job opportunities for both my hubby and me, and it has a considerable job market itself -- we had talked so much about wanting to eventually end our dependency on the city, so what better place to begin? Maplewood and the surrounding area offer little in the way of a local economy, supported almost entirely by NYC transplants still continuing to earn a living in the Big Apple.

* It offers local culture, as evidenced by a Joshua Bell concert my mom had just attended there the previous night, along with the shows of other significant, high-caliber performers she'd been to in the past.

* It's an area that both she and my dad know well, since they both work there.

* The residential areas are reportedly attractive (though whether they're affordable is something we'd need to explore further).

That was enough to convince us it was worth a further look. We remembered having eliminated Morristown early on in our weeding process of NJ locations, but couldn't remember exactly why. Perhaps because it was an hour by train to NYC instead of just half an hour, because the crime was slightly higher than Maplewood's, and because it wasn't an obviously economical choice. However, my hubby and I had agreed long ago that we would be willing to accept an hour-and-a-half door-to-door commute temporarily until we found jobs within NJ, a parameter within which this techincally fits, if only barely. We also found that the crime rate, while a little higher than Maplewood's, is still much lower than the "Best Places to Live" nationwide average by quite a bit -- and in some respects, even lower than that of the town where I grew up, which would be considered ultra-safe by any measure. And as for whether we might be able to afford it any better, we were encouraged that its median home price is about $100,000 less than Maplewood's, and that its median yearly property taxes are about $1,000 lower as well. In doing a cursory scan of the MLS listings within our price range, we were amazed to see just how much more house we could get (extra rooms and *far* bigger lots, all in so-called "move-in condition") compared to what was available in Maplewood at the same range. As my hubby said, "I'm starting to like Morristown more by the minute." Some additional strong arguments we found for considering it, based on our further research:

* Not only does it offer train access to NYC, but it is also within the routes of several NJ Transit bus lines, unlike Maplewood, whose bus service is extremely limited. So even if I couldn't find a job right in town, the opportunity would exist to work elsewhere nearby and still have a prayer of getting there via public transit -- not a small consideration.

* From what we could tell by looking at maps and Google Earth photos, the area is abundant with greenery -- trees (some of the houses we saw in our price range even included wooded lots) and parks (there are several...I think I recall something like seven). And the fact that the lots are generally bigger makes for a less built-up feel in the residential parts than many of the other places we'd investigated.

* It's where The Seeing Eye, a major guide dog training institute, is based, so there's likely to be some accommodation for the needs of people with visual impairments like me. There's even a local bus that goes around town and a special shuttle you can make arrangements with in advance to pick you up and drop you off where you need to go.

* It's surrounded by gourmet/organic grocery retailers -- a branch of Kings like Maplewood has, plus Whole Foods in nearby Madison and Trader Joe's in nearby Florham Park.

What's not to like??? We simply had to see it in person.

So, the question of the house on which we had made an offer suddenly became moot, for completely different reasons than what we had originally started with. We couldn't possibly move forward with it while bearing the new knowledge of potentially better opportunities on the horizon in some form or other.

The fact that sealed the house's doom for us was asking ourselves, "If we had no idea that this house was in a difficult-to-afford but highly desirable town, and we didn't feel any pressure to 'settle,' would we still want to commit to it and forsake all other houses?" The answer for both of us was "no." While it would have suited us just fine, which we had determined at great length, we probably wouldn't have given it a second look if we hadn't been so enamored of the idea of living Maplewood and establishing a toe-hold in that particular town. We loved Maplewood's unique Norman Rockwell charm and vibrant community spirit, but charm and spirit like that come with a very high price tag, especially when it's bolstered by New York incomes. Though a nicety, perhaps it's not strictly necessary for our purposes as long as the area where we ultimately live has an abundance of other positive qualities to recommend it.

My grandmother also made an interesting point when we went to visit her. She didn't know the specifics of what had transpired, but she had heard vague inklings of our activities from my mom and had gotten the distinct impression that we might be setting our sights too low. She reiterated that since the market is now on our side, we have a rare opportunity to buy something that might otherwise have been completely out of reach for us. She proposed making the extra effort to find the best possible house we could acquire now so that we could look back years later and smile about what a relative "steal" we got, hopefully making much higher incomes by that time which would make the struggle of the initial transition feel like a distant memory.

We'd been so focused on looking from the present to the future that we hadn't thought of what it would be like to look back *from* the future *to* the present as a defining moment in real estate history -- the biggest housing drop in 20 years! (We even found a Reuters article hammering home that point: http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN2632091220080226?sp=true) Literally once in our lifetimes thus far. A decade from now, could we truly feel good about having used this much-tauted buyer's market to get a place roughly the size of our *apartment*, in a poo-pooed (even if not justifiably so) part of town? There has to be a better alternative. Granted, we were pretty amazed that we were able to swing a decent house in Maplewood at all -- that was already a lot more than we had expected, as just the very fact of owning a house rather than an apartment had seemed like an elusive dream years off in the future only a few months ago, especially in a town as nice as Maplewood. The place we had found was technically move-in ready, not even a fixer-upper (except in the lightest sense). And it even had a giant deck and reasonably-sized yard!

What we also realized was that both of us are so accustomed to negotiating from a position of competition with zillions of others who are more advantaged in some way (the quintessential New York experience, not to mention other aspects of our earlier lives), and who act with cutthroat speed, that it has become second nature for both of us to adapt and make do with what's available, seizing what opportunities we can before they disappear. If life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, the early bird gets the worm, etc. This has certainly been a useful coping strategy which has served us well. But what if there's pre-made lemonade to be had, and a few more worms to go around than in the past, and it's just a matter of looking harder? Certainly that reward would be worth waiting for, since we definitely don't want our house to be a lemon. And technically speaking, there's no need to be out of our current apartment until the end of July. Perhaps some of the best listings are yet to come, with spring approaching and the housing market and interest rates continuing to go down.

So, it was just a matter of exiting gracefully.

We plan to call the realtor first thing tomorow morning to explain our situation in the most palatable way possible. Back to the drawing board! Live and learn, right?