A mortgage broker defending the real estate agents? NOW I smell conspiracy!! And I am still chilly!!!

Quote:

Boy you guys are grumpy this morning. This girl grew up with friends of mine and I went to college with her sister mentioned in the article Kimberly or as we called her Kimmie.
They are really sweet girls and I am happy that Kerrie and her fianc? are moving to JC. They are not yuppie or hipsters so why are you calling them douches? Is nobody allowed to move to JC or do they need to pass some form of transplant test? Let me see what questions would be on that test?? What are the names of everyone in Bon Jovi?

Get over it and every condo that was mentioned in the last few "the hunts" was sold by different real estate companies so drop the conspiracy theories. People are really loving JC and much to the chagrin of a select few, more people are coming. I was one of them and I am very happy with my decision to move here from NYC. Go ahead I await the nasty comments telling me to go back to NYC or Ohio even though I've never been to Ohio.

what vigilante said

This article gave me "douche chills".

I'm getting married next year, someone buy me a condo in Journal Sq, Lol...

Quite Annoying indeed. Go back to Westchester.

Some local realtor has really mastered the art of submitting these stories to the Times real estate section. Just "The Hunt" has ended in JC 5 times since August, not to mention other frequent "love letters to JC" in that section in the last year.

I can't agree with the idea that living in JC is ever like a vacation, but hey, whatever works for you

Westchester Can Wait



The common charges at the Rivervue Condo in Westchester were too high. The Lofts at New Roc in New Rochelle were near a train yard. The Gull?s Cove condo, in Jersey City, is close to the waterfront. Before moving in, David Hayes proposed to Kerrie McHugh.

The New York Times
By JOYCE COHEN
Published: May 4, 2008

FOR their first home together, Kerrie McHugh and David Hayes assumed that they would buy a starter house. It would be in Westchester County, near her parents.

?I had always lived in a house and thought that was the natural progression,? said Ms. McHugh, who grew up in New Rochelle. She thought not about the upkeep but about ?the fun stuff, like decorating and picking out furniture.?

But she and Mr. Hayes were initially discouraged by the hunt in Westchester. The houses they saw last year in the low $500,000 range were in worn condition. They rode by several of them, rarely stopping. ?It was not even worth it to go in,? said Mr. Hayes, who is from the Westerleigh neighborhood of Staten Island.

?A house is a lot of work,? he said. ?I see my father running around all the time fixing this and fixing that. I want to spend time with Kerrie. I don?t want to be ripping up the floors or fixing the sink.? It took little persuading for her to agree to focus on a co-op or condominium instead.

Ms. McHugh, 26, attended Siena College near Albany, while Mr. Hayes, 27, went to Union College in Schenectady. They met through friends. After graduating in 2003, he joined a management training program that sent him to several cities, mostly in the South. Ms. McHugh, who works in corporate communications for BNP Paribas, moved back in with her parents.

Three years ago, a friend of Mr. Hayes started a wine importing and wholesaling business. So Mr. Hayes moved home to Staten Island and joined his friend?s company, Jandell Selections. He drives to his office in South Kearny, N.J.

The couple split their time between their suburban homes. After a two-hour-plus ride to Staten Island, ?Kerrie would get off that express bus and be so frazzled,? Mr. Hayes said. If he drove back and forth to her parents? place, he often found heavy traffic and always found heavy tolls.

Yet the two were saving money. Ms. McHugh was a bit embarrassed to tell colleagues and clients that she lived with her parents, but ?I knew there was an end in sight and a purpose to living at home,? she said. ?It might have been different if I hadn?t met Dave.?

For a one-bedroom condo, their price range was in the low $400,000s. They needed a parking spot, a washer-dryer and a gym.

New construction appealed to them. In their first home together, they wished to start from scratch, with ?no nicks in the walls and with a completely clean slate,? Ms. McHugh said. They also thought they might avoid the plumbing problems that plagued Ms. McHugh?s sister, Kimberly, who once lived in an old co-op building. The water in the shower was either freezing or scalding.

During the search in Westchester, they loved the loftlike apartments and landscaped grounds at the Rivervue Condominium, once a Revlon factory, near the Tuckahoe train station. It had a gym, a tennis court and pool. But the common charges were high ? around $1,400 a month, which ?put us over our cap a little bit,? Mr. Hayes said.

At the same time, they considered the Lofts at New Roc, a co-op in New Rochelle. But they balked at the view of a train yard.

They decided to look beyond Westchester. When she wasn?t grappling with the bus to Staten Island, Ms. McHugh would take the PATH train to Jersey City, N.J. Mr. Hayes would pick her up in Journal Square. ?Every time I drove there, I could see all the buildings flying up left and right,? he said.

They liked the idea of buying at preconstruction stage, convinced that a unit would appreciate quickly in value.

They were excited about Canco Lofts, the former American Can Company building, until they drove the route between the building and the Journal Square PATH station. The neighborhood was industrial and dense with roadways. Besides, the project wouldn?t be ready for occupancy until at least the end of this summer.

Gull?s Cove, near the waterfront, was further along. Their sales associate, Natalie Miniard, was buying a place there. ?You can?t argue with that,? Mr. Hayes said.

He was glad to be done with open houses and sales pitches. ?I don?t like pretending to be interested,? he said.

The couple went over their budget, buying a 750-square-foot one-bedroom late last summer for $436,000. (A similar one-bedroom is currently on the market for $475,000, Ms. Miniard said.) The monthly common charge is almost $350.

They were alarmed at the cost of an indoor parking spot ? an extra $30,000 ? but knew it was essential. ?We figured it would appreciate as much as, if not more than, the apartment itself,? Ms. McHugh said.

Their hunt had progressed so quickly that Mr. Hayes was disoriented. He was also shopping for an engagement ring. ?The original plan for me was to be engaged before we bought a place together,? he said, though he added, ?I would marry Kerrie if we were living in a cardboard box.?

Their future home was the natural place for a proposal, so he arranged to visit their not-quite-finished apartment, purportedly to take measurements. He proposed on the terrace. The wedding will be in September.

Now, Mr. Hayes has a quicker commute, which costs less in gasoline and tolls. His monthly E-ZPass bill dropped to $40 from $200. And Ms. McHugh saves 40 minutes a day in commuting time to her Midtown Manhattan office by taking the PATH train and subway, rather than the Metro-North Railroad.

The gym happens to be on their floor. ?Talk about no excuses,? Mr. Hayes said. ?The treadmills all have personal televisions, so you can switch the channels around ? anything to distract you.?

They are glad they didn?t opt for a house. ?I knew nothing about Jersey City, so it is really interesting to find all the new restaurants and bars,? Ms. McHugh said. ?It is like a new adventure. It is like being on vacation every weekend.?

E-mail: thehunt@nytimes.com