My prediction is that JC will be the tri-state capital for temporary / contracted people working in Manhattan. I don't see the same scale of permanent 'lifers' in JC as you do in Brooklyn.

It appears that the ferret has a 'thing' about our grove - COULD it be the same lincoln park resident that was NON-compliant with poor behavior?

Keep posting grovepath.

I have no doubt that if the New York Times covered a crime story on the West Side of JC, lovable ol' GrovePath wouldn't hesitate to put the specific neighborhood in the subject line.

Nice to know that when it comes to positive coverage of the West Side in the NYT Real Estate section, that policy is a complete and total double standard.

Keep up the good work, Grovey!

Quote:

Can't imagine how that happened.

New York Times Link

The Hunt
Leaving Brooklyn for Jersey City



A place on Kensington Avenue in Jersey City was far from the train. A nice studio with a patio, on Bergen Avenue, was on the small side. A condo on Fairmount Avenue, with a courtyard view, is well laid out. Tamila Davis, with Tiger and Neqko, moved into her apartment in October.
Photographs by Hiroko Masuike & Paul Hawthorne

New York Times
By JOYCE COHEN
December 9, 2007

It was tough for Talima Davis, Brooklyn born and bred, to leave her beloved borough.

?My friends call me the quintessential Brooklyn girl,? she said. ?I never leave Brooklyn except to go to work.?

But when she found herself priced out of even Bedford-Stuyvesant, she decided she had no choice.

When she was growing up, Ms. Davis, 27, lived with her mother in the Eleanor Roosevelt Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Three years ago, after her grandmother died, she moved to her grandmother?s house on Bainbridge Street, where her grandfather and uncle also lived. She paid around $450 a month.

But she was tired of sharing the kitchen and bathroom. ?I wanted something I could say was mine,? she said. ?I needed to buy something, to make a move, or I was going to miss out. Brooklyn was getting really expensive really fast.?

Her goal was to buy a condominium for less than $200,000. There weren?t many condos in Bed-Stuy, but she found a one-bedroom on Macon Street near Saratoga Square Park, listed at $145,000.

?I didn?t love it,? said Ms. Davis, the production manager for Art in America and The Magazine Antiques. (She is also studying for a degree in graphic design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.)

?It was O.K., but I figured it was the only place I could afford in Brooklyn and still be near my friends,? she said.

Besides, she knew how values in the neighborhood were rising. Her offer of $140,000 was accepted.

But it turned out that few of the owners in the condominium were able to pay their common charges. Her lawyer and mortgage broker warned her against the purchase. Nobody would grant her a mortgage on such a unit, anyway, and she would doubtless have trouble selling it later. (Later, the listing agent called to say the seller was desperate and would sell for $85,000.)

Ms. Davis briefly did some hunting farther out in Brooklyn. She found a studio for $165,000 ?way out in Canarsie, but it was beyond the last stop on the L train.?

?I couldn?t imagine coming home from work and taking that long train and then the bus,? she said. If that was all Brooklyn had to offer her, ?that?s when I had to go,? she said. ?I tend to be one of those people who is always looking ahead instead of focusing on the moment.?

Venting to a friend who lived in Jersey City, N.J., which she had read was an up-and-coming place, she decided to hunt there. Her friend referred her to Maida Negron, an agent in the Jersey City Heights office of Liberty Realty.

?I looked on her Web site and didn?t find anything I liked and thought maybe I wouldn?t call her,? Ms. Davis said. But she did.

She told Ms. Negron she wanted a condo within walking distance of the PATH train that would allow her dog, Neqko, a bichon fris?, and her cat, Tiger, an orange tabby.

Her maximum price was $165,000. ?Because New Jersey has really high taxes, I had to lower my price range,? she said. ?My friends said that is a lot to ask for, but I said: ?Maybe I can get it here. We?ll see.??

Though downtown Jersey City was expensive, Ms. Negron told her, there were definitely possibilities nearby. ?Talima really wanted to live in Brooklyn,? Ms. Negron said. ?I am originally from Brooklyn, so I understand where she was coming from.? Manhattan, however, ?is so much closer to New Jersey, and there are so many more ways in and out. I was always late to work when I lived in Brooklyn.?

One day last spring, Ms. Negron took Ms. Davis and her mother, Charlotte Davis, to see a one-bedroom on Kensington Avenue near Lincoln Park. It was around $154,000 for 500 square feet. It seemed too far from the train and had just one closet so small that ?I couldn?t fit an easel in there,? Ms. Davis said. (It remains on the market for $139,000.)

But she was encouraged. ?If this is what I can expect, this is O.K.,? she told herself.

She was tempted by the Basilico on Bergen Avenue. A nice studio with a patio was going for $165,000.

?I felt like, hmm, the photos make it look really nice,? she said, but it was on the small side. She decided against it. ?Over here, people have other options,? she said.

They next tried adjacent Union City. An enormous one-bedroom condo on Bergenline Avenue was available for just under $200,000, a price that Ms. Negron thought would be negotiable. It included a patio and a washer-dryer, but ?I didn?t want to take a three-fare zone from M.T.A. to PATH to light rail,? Ms. Davis said. There was little shopping nearby, and she doesn?t drive. Nor did she like the carpeting.

?My mom really wanted me to have it,? she said. ?It was huge but more her style than mine. If I was going to stretch out of Brooklyn, I was going to get everything I wanted.?

A few weeks later, she returned to Jersey City and visited a Fairmount Avenue building being converted from a rental to a condo. One of the least expensive units, on a low floor, wasn?t available for viewing because a key was broken in the lock. She instead looked at a huge, bright one-bedroom on a higher floor, listed at $199,000. It was just too expensive.

But the next week, she saw the lower unit, a well-laid-out one bedroom with 550 square feet. The view was of a courtyard with plantings. The list price was $154,000.

Ms. Davis offered $150,000. But someone else was interested, so she raised her offer to the asking price, and was told it was hers. Monthly charges are just under $200.

The renovation took longer than expected, because of a wait for city permits. She moved in October. Friends helped by waiting at her new apartment until they had received her text message announcing she had finally closed and they could unpack her things.

Now, Ms. Davis has a 15-minute walk to the PATH train at Journal Square, and a similar walk on the other end to her SoHo office. ?I spend more time walking than I do on the PATH,? she said.

To her, Jersey City feels like ?an arm of Brooklyn.?

On a recent visit to Brooklyn, when her friends asked if she missed it, she was surprised to say, ?I don?t.?

?However, if I could pick my apartment up and take it into Brooklyn,? she said, ?I would do it in a heartbeat.?

E-mail: thehunt@nytimes.com

New York Times Link