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Re: Dixon Mills Safety
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Home away from home


pretty safe all things equal. Big difference between JC and East Village is that there is a lot less foot traffic and far fewer bars/retail establishments open at night. So that said it can seem desolate/quiet walking home at night. I agree with the poster that said take a cab or walk west on Christopher Columbus where there's at least vehicle traffic.

Posted on: 2009/2/10 2:02
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Re: NYTimes predicts Top Bank Executives soon to be crowding PATH train every morning at Journal Square
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Glad you caught that nice complimentary "detail" in the NYT. I wonder if any Wall Street MDs live in Journal Square. Maybe someone who is a deep value guy??

Posted on: 2009/2/8 19:44
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Re: Paddle ball courts in Lincoln Park
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can you play off the walls or is this just the closest thing in JC??

Posted on: 2009/2/8 15:58
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Re: A Case Study in What's wrong with JC Real Estate:
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It's pretty simple: Wall St workers made significant income gains in the last 10 years. Now a good percentage of that income gain has been whacked and is not likely to come back soon. Furthermore many jobs levered to the financial services industry have been lost and aren't coming back anytime soon.

Top brass from the financial services world don't live in JC but associates and the like do to a certain extent. Associates who knocked down low to mid six figures for the last few years will be back to the low six figures only. That means less down payment money and tighter personal budgeting.

This means that a lot of the demand driving up brownstones and luxury type apartments doesn't have the dollar muscle anymore. Thus JC RE values will go down. The government can try to goose the mkt with low rates and additional tax breaks but buyers aren't stupid. They're going to wait until the market price clears and up around NYC no one thinks we're anywhere near a bottom.

You could buy an entire VVP brownstone for 400K 10 years ago. Now they go for $1-1.5mm. Those gains were Wall St/financial services spillover to JC. Sure JC is nicer than 10 years ago, but it still has the same lingering problems. I don't know that brownstones roundtrip to 400K, but I think 700-900K is a very likely scenario. We shall see....

Posted on: 2009/2/6 2:57
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Re: A Case Study in What's wrong with JC Real Estate:
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I think there has never been a riskier time to be long RE around here. There is no way you can break even on an owner's equivalent rent basis in the nyc metro area. It'll take a significant haircut on the cost psf before that happens, so "cashflowing" isn't an option. Rates are going up, no matter what the govt does. Wait til the Chinese decide they're leary of US Treasuries and watch how fast rates head up. Furthermore to buy a brownstone you're going to need a jumbo and those rates are high on a relative basis and going higher imho.

The big problem around here is that RE just had the best 10 year wave in history. That wave did wonders for many parts of Brooklyn including Ft Greene which was a crack warzone in the early 90s. I feel like JC blew the opportunity of the 10 year wave and didn't truly gentrify enough to turn the corner. Now that the wave is back at sea and not likely to reappear for quite awhile, I have concerns about what will happen to downtown JC.

Clearly crime is still an issue and it seems the trend is worse. I'm not sure many of the yuppies who decided to take a chance on JC really want to be around shootings, regular muggings etc. Add to that a ton of new yuppie supply via 77 Hudson, Grove Pointe, etc. If the yuppies get gunshy who's gonna buy those places at today's prices? No one. So add it all up and I think there's a good chance psf heads down and brownstones go back under a million. This won't play out overnight but if we're still as jittery economically come November you can guarantee it.

Posted on: 2009/1/31 20:44
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Re: A Case Study in What's wrong with JC Real Estate:
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Gotta back up wibbit on this one - price in b/t purchase and sale matters a ton. Where do you think all the HELOC withdrawals of the last 8 years came from? The reason much of the economic "growth" of the 2000s is specious is because it was borrowed against an asset with volatile pricing as people are now learning the hard way.

I'm fascinated by how JC brownstones and for that matter Brooklyn brownstones stay at elevated levels. I guess there's going to be a lag time between Wall St layoffs/lack of new hiring and RE prices. I realize the PSF pricing in downtown is much cheaper than Brooklyn but if everywhere starts getting cheaper than people will look at Manhattan and Brooklyn before JC. Corp law jobs and most other high paying jobs are dependent on Wall St for their growth and it ain't happening. My sense is that these 1-1.5mm brownstones could easily be cut 33% or maybe more with just one year of tough times on Wall Street. And JC looks even worse if prices head south as you know the county won't lower Prop Taxes ever.

I think the white collar brownstone owner defaults are the next shoe to drop. Jumbo loans in general are starting to falter as the headlines noted the other day. We shall see, but I think this whole flock back to the utopian hip cities may ultimately just be a short term phenomenon once the easy dough dries up....

Posted on: 2009/1/29 15:05
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Re: A Case Study in What's wrong with JC Real Estate:
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Home away from home


Seems everyone is trying to sell the downtown brownstones for over $1mm. I dunno, crime seems to be back in the direction of the old days and brownstones weren't going for a million back then.

Wall Street as a financial growth machine is over for the forseeable future. So what keeps prices around here high? Good Schools - no, Proximity to city - maybe, Low Crime - definite no, Low Rates - if you can get a loan and have a down payment, Low Property Taxes - definite no. So why are they still high? Maybe people just aren't selling, but it seems to me a markdown is coming.

There's a place on the east side of VVP up for $1.5mm or so that is a two family. Taxes are high as always, I just don't see someone paying that price. Thoughts?

Posted on: 2009/1/28 19:39
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Re: Downtown: One dead in shooting on Coles Street in Jersey City this morning
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Home away from home


Once again it seems that downtown is at a loss for lack of police walking the beat. I saw at least 3 police officers right near where Coles, Newark Ave and 1st Street all intersect at 9:10 AM. They were watching traffic going around road work being done in front of that new construction on the south side of Newark Ave.

I always see police around construction sites or the PATH stations but rarely walking the streets of downtown. Whatever happened to the police presence on Wayne Street after the drug bust a few months back? I'm pretty sure that has ended and my guess is that park will be back in its usual derelict shape come warmer weather. This needs to change if this type of crime is ever going to stop...

Posted on: 2009/1/27 19:16
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Re: Day Care - Downtown
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There's definitely a shortage of higher end daycare in downtown. We've been on the waiting list at River School for over a year with no end in sight - not even sure we'll go that route when the number is called. Our 16 month old baby is at Smile and we've generally been happy with the care. She's been there about 6 months and the caregivers have been very nice and we've not seen any turnover. I wish they could figure a way for the kids to get outdoor time when the weather is decent, but aside from that I think it's a nice play area for the infants/toddlers....

Posted on: 2009/1/14 15:13
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Re: 1 family, 4.6 million
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Home away from home


I believe the old gym building next door is being offered for around 1.5mm and it boasts something like 11,000sf. Granted it hasn't been converted to residential yet. Some interesting places on that part of Newark, but kinda doubt either fetches the dough the owners are hoping for. Would take a very unique buyer...

Posted on: 2009/1/10 13:06
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Re: Woman attacked, robbed in Downtown Jersey City
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anybody know if this happened east of Varick or west?

There are very few street lights on Mercer just west of Varick, especially on the south side of the street. i don't know if there are rules about street lights but that area could use them... Awful story btw...

Posted on: 2008/12/27 3:19
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Re: Water in Jersey City, Hoboken tested high for turbidity, increased chance disease-carrying organisms
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Home away from home


I'm curious do people around downtown JC worry about the water? I use a Brita, but have no idea what all that really does.

Do any of you not trust United and actually buy bottled water?

Posted on: 2008/12/17 2:29
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Re: gun shots
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wasn't there some sort of take back the block type meeting with residents of Wayne b/t Jersey and Barrow and local police? Not sure of outcome, but that block seems to bring nothing but trouble.

The woman who runs the antique store is extremely nice and certainly doesn't deserve bulletholes in her store. Though I'm guessing that wasn't the idiot shooter's target...

Posted on: 2008/11/22 21:31
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Re: There are Three Public Questions on the Ballot This Election
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I noted yesterday that the Kennedy school voting booth had problems and many of us were not able to vote on the school board question. Anyone know if there is a way to vote now or are we outta luck?

Really pathetic that as of 6:30AM one of the two booths was totally out of commission and the other had problems with the 3 questions (only the first one worked).

Posted on: 2008/11/5 12:35
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Kennedy School Voting Problems
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As of 6:30AM one of the two voting booths was totally broken. On the one that was functioning, 2 of the voter questions were not working. One of those was the question about allowing Mayor to appoint school board officials versus allowing them to be voted in.

I find this all around unacceptable and no one working there had any idea how one could vote on the questions once they'd already cast their presidential vote at the booth.

Any ideas, my guess is a lot of votes are not being captured and given the lines so people were turning away entirely. Hopefully they vote later in the day...

Posted on: 2008/11/4 12:44
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Re: Wayne Street Issues
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Glad to hear they're sticking to it. I don't think that playground is a good idea. There's a good one at VVP, as noted a quick 2 blocks away.

Minus the police presence, I see that playground reverting to the lowest common denominator fast...

Posted on: 2008/10/20 20:59
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Re: Wayne Street Issues
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anyone know if the police are keeping up a presence around everyone's favorite neighborhood park?

Would be nice to see some real effort beyond the one bust...

Posted on: 2008/10/20 15:51
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Re: Is it me or is an elevator missing at Grove Path??
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sure there's been a big increase and that was off a pretty small base. My point is that compared to equidistant spots in Brooklyn, JC is way behind in terms of the percentage increase in number of families...

Furthermore I'm sure everyone in JC with a stroller is bummin that they have to lug their stroller+child down a bunch of steps to a crowded/infrequent train...

Posted on: 2008/10/8 15:38
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Re: Is it me or is an elevator missing at Grove Path??
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To Alb's point about stroller moms/grocery stores being negative on lack of elevator - if you look at the tenants at Grove Pointe and others around there aren't that many families.

I think the reason JC is so much cheaper than comparable Brooklyn neighborhoods is because JC is much more inconvenient for families. You get a lot of singles who stay for a bit and move on when they have families. Whereas Brooklyn has a much higher percentage of people that plant long term roots.

When people plant roots they work harder to improve the area. I'd bet the average duration of someone living in Grove Pointe or 50 Columbus is 3-4 years. Most won't be active in the neighborhood politics or even vote for that matter.

Posted on: 2008/10/8 14:09
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Re: Is it me or is an elevator missing at Grove Path??
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Sadly we figured it out once we had our baby here. It really is unacceptable that they didn't make the Grove Pointe developers (or any of the new developments) pony up cash to get the PATH stations to first world status.

There's a thread on JC List to send complaints to the governor regarding newport crowding and infrequent night/weekend trains. I'd add elevators at all the stations as well...

Posted on: 2008/10/7 20:36
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Re: Where's the fire?
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gas stations are generally not the place to lose control of one's car.

Any bets as to whether she was texting or on cellphone??

Posted on: 2008/9/26 13:28
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Re: What does everyone think of the Bailout?
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Wibbit - I thiink the problem is valuing the assets. Wall St banks aren't playing nice with each other because they really don't know what value to put on the assets. Furthermore the structures are quite complex making pricing very subjective. If I were to bet on who comes out a winner in a trading competition between wall st sharpies versus the govt - my money is on the wall st sharpies every time.

I think the govt will get soaked on the deal. No different than RTC back in the early 90s. This problem was 20 years in the making as banks became less regulated, why hurry to "solve" it in a week? The whole thing is just the opinion of 2 people, whom I wouldn't say are totally impartial....

Posted on: 2008/9/23 13:39
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Re: What does everyone think of the Bailout?
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the plan is terrible. Notice how foreign governments are refusing to jump on the bandwagon. All this does is bailout the idiots who knew better as they were securitizing all sorts of crummy loans. All this does is prolong the root of all these problems: that Real Estate is still way overvalued when compared to current income levels. So rather than cleaning out the system in a free mkt manner, the govt is prolonging the slow grind down that we've been experiencing the past couple years. It's ridiculous to rush something through in a week that took years to build up. It's just not that simple and democrats should feel no pressure to do the patriotic thing and just go with the flow.

Posted on: 2008/9/23 1:46
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Re: Direct 33rd-Journal Sq service on weekends (bypassing Hoboken)
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Home away from home


4 mintues?! The train sits around waiting at Hoboken for at least 4 minutes, and that's before you even add in the minutes it takes to go from Newport to Hoboken and back...

It's quite annoying...

Posted on: 2008/9/16 1:08
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Re: What the hell just happened on Erie Street?!
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wouldn't it make sense to require police presence at these "parties" if fights are common and the ante has been upped by morons popping shots into the sky?

Posted on: 2008/9/15 13:27
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Police Car Smackup on SW corner of VVP
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Home away from home


Anyone know what went down? Saw a police car crashed up on both sides and a white volvo that was damaged in the front. Not sure if it was a routine crash of if the police car was chasing a stolen car.

If nothing else, nice to see some police presence around VVP - near some burglary spots from last week according to reports in this site...

Posted on: 2008/9/15 13:21
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Re: Robbery near Mercer and Varick
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I was told that it was a home robbery. My info is secondhand so I'm hoping someone knows more.

Apparently there were police on the scene during the day and one neighbor thought they may have caught the person. Something definitely happened, but I'm just not clear on the details.

It seems pretty brazen if indeed it was a daytime break in...

Posted on: 2008/8/26 0:04
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Robbery near Mercer and Varick
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I heard from a couple people that there was a robbery at one of the brownstones just east of Mercer and Varick - anyone know the scoop on this?

Thanks...

Posted on: 2008/8/25 22:06
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Re: Governor of NY Warning of Worst Economy in Decades...
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I think the nicer brownstones in downtown JC are the barometer to watch. Most single family buyers are looking to plant roots and thus will think about pricing a lot more than these couple years in and out condo buyers. A lot of brownstones around Mercer/nicer part of Wayne were hitting 1.2mm mark in 2006. Now seems like they've peeled back a bit to shy of 1.1mm. My guess is that given recent rate upticks, you may start seeing them move around 1mm.

It seems the brownstone craze that has gripped Brooklyn since 2000 was slow to start here. My sense is last up is first to roll back over. If schools were good, better govt , PATH service decent, etc I'd have more confidence...

Posted on: 2008/7/30 13:31
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Re: Assault in Van Vorst Park tonight
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Who do you call or write to express outrage that it took anywhere from 25-32 minutes for police to arrive after a serious crime occurred? Weren't there a couple violent muggings on York St last year around this time that led to meetings with city types - has anything changed at all?

That park is probably the nicest public space downtown JC has and it cannot be allowed to turn into the wild west for a bunch of lowlifes.

Posted on: 2008/7/21 11:31
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