Quote:
At least it'll bring ya closer to city hall, hello neigh-bore

u can get one of them 600sqf 1br coops on montgomery for 170k, but the building leaves a lot of be desired to put it mildly..

I think she was concentrating on the downtown area. If you could a one bedroom in DT JC for less than $200k, I need to know where you're looking!!

Quote:
It was unrealistic in where she was looking, if you are able to look at condos less than $200k why couldn't she ?
As far as the doorman is concerned it's probably nothing but I wouldn't want the doorman constantly seeing me up and down, up and down, day in and day out. Sometimes I run in and out of the house quite often or if I forget something then it's back inside again...and again.

"By now, she knew that a price in the low $200,000s was unrealistic."

Odd. My fiance and I are only looking at condos in JC below $200K and still need to somehow narrow the field.

I also got a laugh out of her concern about the doorman knowing her comings + goings, and ostensibly who she's coming + going with. Guess she'll give her neighbors plenty to gossip about [in her own mind].

She really wasn't ready. She could have continued to pay rent and then concentrated to look throughly for a new place to hang her hat. I don't think her deal was that great to begin with, plus with no paking, the doorman knowing her every move, cubby hole size studio, included ammenities that deem unnessesary I don't think this is what she initially wanted. Also I wonder what her maintenance fee is. She should have looked at the St. John's apartments near the JSQ PATH they go for less than 300k with a doorman Or in the Heights section of town at least with their converted apartment buildings you get what you pay for, no more no less.

nah this article looks genuine, actually that lady is pretty savvy and did her research. Although if she waited, she could gotten a 800sqf fully rennovated 1br in park hamtilon high floors for 260k....still all the step she went through is logical not like those bs marketing for the building i am forbidden to name!


Quote:

lol that's like half of trump's units.....

The Hunt:
For Jersey City Hunter, Nothing Else Compared

A one-bedroom at Crescent Court came with a parking spot.

Hamilton Square has a mix of both new and historic structures.

A condo at 60 Erie Street in Jersey City was in a former school building.

Renuka Vijayanathan bought a 580-square-foot alcove studio.

New York Times
By JOYCE COHEN
Published: December 17, 2009

It was the inevitable departure of her roommates that made Renuka Vijayanathan serious about buying a place of her own.

A condo at 60 Erie Street in Jersey City was in a former school building.

She wanted more control over her living situation. ?I was so sick of everybody else?s life changes making me have to drop everything and find a new roommate,? she said. ?The living environment was always subject to change, and when that?s not stable, nothing else in your life can really be stable.?

Ms. Vijayanathan, 31, who is from Essex County, N.J., earned a degree in environmental engineering from Rutgers University. Later, she received a graduate degree in urban planning from New York University. For much of grad school, she lived in Chinatown with a series of roommates.

The last straw that made her want to buy came when she shared a three-bedroom rental in Jersey City, paying about $1,000 a month. This time one of her two roommates proved to be difficult. The roommate, who generated plenty of bottles and trash, had rigid rules for recycling and emptying but never seemed to be around on trash night.

So last winter, eager to be free of ?other people?s living issues,? Ms. Vijayanathan decided it was time to find her own place.

She planned to remain in Jersey City, where she assumed that an apartment for $200,000 to $250,000 was ?not too much to ask for,? she said. ?I was perfectly happy with a walk-up ? I didn?t need a doorman or a gym or extra amenities.?

She felt it important not to become house poor. ?I am single, I go out, I like to have dinner with my friends and go to dance class,? she said, referring to the flamenco lessons she takes several times a week. ?I was very debt-conscious and didn?t want a heavy mortgage payment.?

In the sinking market, Ms. Vijayanathan, who works in Manhattan in financial services, thought she would find great deals, but she didn?t. Sellers seemed to be waiting out the bad market, she said.

She ruled out the Paulus Hook area as too nice and too expensive. But places she could afford seemed to be in uncertain neighborhoods.

Renovated walk-ups were often disappointing. The interiors were ?not top-notch quality in terms of the finishes,? she said. One place had a washer-dryer ?in the kitchen, smack where the dishwasher should be. I thought, ?This is a design disaster.? ?

As the hunt continued, ?my eye got sharper,? she said. She didn?t want a downgrade from her old rental, which was in a pretty brownstone. ?When you live in something nice, that is a base point,? she said. ?Why would I buy something that wasn?t as nice as I was renting? I had set the bar high.?

Last spring, she found a lovely two-bedroom condominium at 60 Erie Street, a converted school building in the historic Harsimus Cove district. ?I thought it was a good buy,? she said. But the price, $325,000, made her nervous, so she offered $300,000.

Thinking about whether she could buy that condo taught her lessons about the mortgage world. She had a mortgage preapproval from one lender, but it came with a 60-day time limit. And the 60 Erie apartment wasn?t yet finished, so even if her bid was accepted she feared missing the deadline. In addition, the mortgage might not come through if the building didn?t have the requisite number of owner-occupied units. Ultimately, it didn?t matter because her bid was rejected.

Crescent Court was another favorite. A one-bedroom, for $312,000, came with a parking spot. But the downtown location, near the Holland Tunnel extension, didn?t feel safe at night. ?It is strange how just a few blocks can make a difference,? she said. And construction wasn?t complete.

She was interested, too, in Hamilton Square, which she had watched going up across the park from her rental. By now, she knew that a price in the low $200,000s was unrealistic.

One-bedroom condos there, which start at about $329,000, were unaffordable. But she kept visiting the sales office anyway, she said, with ?not-so-serious inquiries,? all the while thinking, ?These people are so sick of me.?

There was, however, a place she could afford ? an alcove studio at 580 square feet. For $274,000, nothing compared.

Hamilton Square, on the site of the former St. Francis Hospital complex, includes new construction and revamped historic structures. ?Renuka?s apartment is in the prewar building, so there were limitations to the footprint of the floor,? said Sawyer Smith, the director of sales. ?There?s a really big two-bedroom next to it.?

(Hamilton Square has units as big as four bedrooms, in the $2 million range. Currently, 37 of 125 units in the first phase are sold. There will eventually be 300 units.)

At first, Ms. Vijayanathan worried because her appraisal came in low. The appraiser had underestimated the square footage, she said. ?I don?t know if he took a tape measure out or did a drive-by appraisal,? she added, ?but that was going to bring the process to a halt.? The appraiser returned and remeasured, with a better result.

Meanwhile, her mortgage rate guarantee would be expiring, and her apartment wasn?t yet finished. ?I was quite traumatized by the process,? she said. ?I just wanted it to get done, and if it didn?t get done, I was ready to walk away and be a renter again.?

It did get done. She moved in late summer, thankful to avoid the dreaded ?interval back home? with the parents. Her outlay, with mortgage and monthly charges, is around $1,600 a month.

?I have all the luxury finishes that the other units have,? she said. ?It?s just that mine is smaller. I feel like, even though there were places bigger for the money, this was money well spent.?

The building holds a brunch one Saturday a month as well as periodic wine receptions. ?Honestly, it sounds a little hokey, but I do like the community element,? she said.

Though she parks on the street, she has a pool and a doorman ? ?all these things I didn?t really want but are nice,? she said.

She still isn?t sold on the virtues of an attended lobby. ?As outgoing as I am, there are some parts of my life I like to keep private, my comings and goings,? she said. ?The doormen know if you?re coming back very late.?

So she often circumvents the lobby by taking the back stairs.