New house in NJ

[FooBang]

After 4 years in Snookieville, we finally closed on a house this week. The prices here are abusive, though-- Our new place is a modest 1948 Colonial. $1.15M. That's just c-r-a-a-a-z-y. To add insult to injury, we had to pay a 1% MANSION tax. Does this look like a mansion to you?


1612

--Foo

[Big Skyz]

Nice house, but you'd be sick if you knew what kind of place that would buy you in many parts of Montana.

[quercus alba]

New Jersey?



get a rope

[Bwana]

Glad to hear you got your own digs but HOLY MOLY houses are WAY spendy out there.

[Buckrub]

There's a house very much like that in the old part of our town that just sold for around $118,500.

Seriously.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Where's the little statue of the black guy with the lantern and the little red cap?
BKB

[FooBang]

I know that house would be a million dollars less just about anywhere else in the country.. I WAS looking at a place down by Cappy earlier, when I was thinking about moving my team down there. That money would have bought a real mansion with a gate and fountain in the middle of the driveway. <sigh>

We are paying for the ability to get to Midtown Manhattan in 23 minutes, unless it's a work day, which takes an hour and 40 minutes. Parking (in NJ) and ferry tickets cost about $700 bucks/month. You know, when they say that the 1% should pay more taxes, they're not really considering how very f*ing much it costs to just exist here.

--Foo

[Buckrub]

Why on earth would anyone go to midtown Manhattan???? Ugh.

[FooBang]

There are nice things in NY, once you get away from Times Square. All locals avoid Times Square like the plague that it is.

--Foo

[Buckrub]

I'll take your word for it.

I want my epitaph to read:

He never ate a whole bagel and he never went to New York.

[FooBang]

True story: I brought by brother to Manhattan and he had a panic attack and had to leave. This is a guy who has spent time in Kosovo, Guantanamo and Iraq (both wars). Too many people everywhere, like roaches. Big stinky, touristy roaches.

--Foo

[Buckrub]

No. The windows on the dormer to the right aren't even square. :)

[Chicken Dinner]

I'll stop complaining about how much I paid for my 1949 Cape Cod that is a similar distance to downtown DC. Manhattan is a great place to depend some time. Not sure I want to live there though.

[FooBang]

I hope you got a lot of land with that thing.

14,000 Sq. Ft. Keep in mind, we've been looking for 4 years now to find a place we could afford that wasn't a total $#1+hole. We looked at one place-- it was a 1940, asbestos-filled house with a sagging roof for $1.5M that was owned by two surgeons. I was walking through the place thinking, "are you kidding me? This is what 2 surgeons can afford!!?"


--Foo

[FooBang]

No. The windows on the dormer to the right aren't even square. :)

Heh. Didn't notice that. Must be a google artifact.

--Foo

[FooBang]

No, that's lot size.. 100ft x 140ft. House is 3120 sq. ft.

[FooBang]

Not gated. See, the way things work in the northeast is that there is *no* open space. It is one city. One neighborhood that stretches from Boston to DC and contains about 50 million people. Coming from the midwest, it was frustrating at first that the neighborhood never, ever, really ended. It *just* keeps on going.

--Foo

[FooBang]

Would you believe this place (http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/274-Woodland-St_Tenafly_NJ_07670_M69856-19392?row=9) is $3M???

..or this one (http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/Tenafly_NJ_07670_M56574-31699?row=4) at $4m?

Totally insane.

--Foo

[LJ3]

I for one, think it's pretty dang cool :)

[FooBang]

I for one, think it's pretty dang cool :)

What's cool, Len? Ass-rapery? :D

--Foo

[LW]

I'm going to sleep well knowing that I live in a 2 million dollar home. At least if it were moved to NJ.

[BarryBobPosthole]

When I go to NJ, I used to stay in Basking Ridge, which is one of those real corporate kind of places like the Woodlands in Houston. Lots of headquarters buildings built in the woods. Last few rimes I was up there I stayed in Morristown just a few miles up the road and a really nice little burg. The real estate prices I noticed there were in the range or a bit higher then what Foo found. Beautiful place though.

Congrats, Foo! Hope you family likes it! A very nice looking home.

BKB

[jb]

Foo, that's a Cap Code or Bungalow, neat house, you should love it.
Being from MI you know what that kind of money would buy on the water up here. Someday when you sell that place and come home you can sit on your deck and watch this kind of sunset over the lake. :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v460/jbmich/be5.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jbmich/media/be5.jpg.html)

[FooBang]

When I go to NJ, I used to stay in Basking Ridge, which is one of those real corporate kind of places like the Woodlands in Houston. Lots of headquarters buildings built in the woods. Last few rimes I was up there I stayed in Morristown just a few miles up the road and a really nice little burg. The real estate prices I noticed there were in the range or a bit higher then what Foo found. Beautiful place though.

BKB

Thanks, bbp! BTW, I hunt on the black river WMA, which is in Randolph, right near Morristown. Beautiful place there. I think out that way, you actually get more for your money..

[Buckrub]

I have 2880 square feet, 2 car carport plus 2 car garage, and 1.1 wooded acre, in city limits. Last appraisal about $125,000.

[FooBang]

I have 2880 square feet, 2 car carport plus 2 car garage, and 1.1 wooded acre, in city limits. Last appraisal about $125,000.

I envy you, there.. Sometimes, I ask myself if killing myself to make more money is worth it, when the cost of things here to achieve it is always beyond reach. The man is always fixing the game. You just can't win.

--Foo

[Buckrub]

I didn't win???

dang******

[FooBang]

BBP, here is a map of NJ. Morris town is in the area denoted as "Executives living mansions driving Mercedes Benz". Incidentally, I live in "Well to-do conservatives. Christie country." Which is about right.

Freaky fact: My kids get Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the Chinese New Year off from school.

1615

--Foo

[Buckrub]

Whoever wrote "Pretty Much Alabama"...............has never been to Alabama................... ha.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Foo, there's a pretty cool little park there where Washington and the Continental Army spent a winter or two, the first being the critical winter of 1777 when the army was falling apart after Trenton and Washington kept them together.

Lots of history up there among the equestrian centers and yuppies. I still haven't been able to find a liquor store there though!

BKB

[Captain]

Nice diggs! Congratulations, nothin' like it.

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[Thumper]

I learned a LONG time ago you can't compare house prices with where "you" live and where "I" live ... it doesn't work. I learned that after moving to L.A. in the '70's. My first house would have been a $25,000-$30,000 house where I lived in Florida, but was $120,000 in a suburb of L.A. (like yours, 30-40 mins. out of L.A. ... or 1 1/2 hrs. on a work day). The same house would have been $850,000 and in an "average" neighborhood in L.A. proper (NOT the beach, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, Hollywood Hills, etc. which would have been in the millions)

BUT ... it's all relative. I was paid $100,000 way back then in L.A. ... which would have been prolly $15,000-$18,000/yr. here in Florida.

That said, congrats on the new digs Foo ... you're lucky to have only spent 4 years searching!

[FooBang]

That said, congrats on the new digs Foo ... you're lucky to have only spent 4 years searching!

Thanks, Thumpy. I can only take comfort in the fact that I can sell the place for at least as much as I paid for it. Unless that bubble pops. Always the bubble..

--Foo

[Thumper]

Thanks, Thumpy. I can only take comfort in the fact that I can sell the place for at least as much as I paid for it. Unless that bubble pops. Always the bubble..

--Foo

There's still a bubble? I thought that thing already popped! I figured you bought at the best time and it can only go up from here. Prices are still super depressed here. I lived in my L.A. (area) house for 9 years. Did zero improvements other than a coat of paint and doubled my $$$ (literally) when I sold it. I bought my house here 24 years ago and the current appraisal is just barely above what I paid for it in Aug. '89! :(

'Course, it's a 2-story w/pool on an acre lot at the end of a cul-de-sac in a nice neighborhood on a very large, clean, spring-fed lake with private dock/boat ramp and I only paid $115,000. Heck, I even have a 900 sq. ft. attached garage. I can back a decent sized boat straight in (trailer and all), park a car next to it, close the door and still have plenty of room to walk around in there. As I said ... it's all relative ... the avg. income here is pretty sucky and "decent" jobs are scarce, but you just don't need as much.

We can all sit here and "compare" prices and tell what "we" got for x-amount of $$$ ... but it doesn't mean squat unless we live next door to each other. Sunny for example (not "picking", just making a point) ... she says she likes living in the boonies and having lots of property. That's fine ... problem is, hubby has to "commute" so far to make a living, he has to spend the week in a camper and only come home a few weekends/year. There's that word "relative" again. There's always a trade-off somewhere in the equation.

Heck, look at what you paid for that place "on the water" you had down here. What would THAT cost up there? ;)

[FooBang]

JB, just saw your post. That picture made me miss Michigan, but then I remembered the 9 months of winter...

;)

--Foo

[FooBang]

Thump,
My place on the water in st. Pete would be unattainable up here. Anything on the water in NJ starts at a gazillion dollars.

--Foo

[Arty]

Nice crib bro!
The trees in the back are big enough to hang a tree stand.

[FooBang]

Thanks, Arty. Plenty of trees and lots of room, but unfortunately, one is not permitted to discharge a weapon or even shoot a bow in my town. We are overrun with mangy deer.

--Foo

[Niner]

It is crazy what the housing/land market is in different parts of the country.
That is a very nice mansion you've got there, Foo.

When I win the lottery, and have a milllllion dollllllars burning a hole in my pocket, I sure would like to move out to the Big Sky country of Montana.
http://www.landsofmontana.com/montana/land-for-sale/256.56-acres-in-Cascade-County-Montana/id/1143195
Until then, I'll be content with our 5 acres and house here "in town" (well...not too far from "town"), and The Farm with its pond and lil cabin.

[FooBang]

That's a nice piece of property right there. I'm afraid the missus would never agree to live anywhere remote. That's why I was thinking that NC would be a nice compromise. I could get some land and she could enjoy the shops and whatnot near Cary.. One day...

--Foo

[Arty]

Cary is a great town/area.
We're about an hour from there.
Ritzi place.