ShareOutbid in a Buyer's Market
A young couple find frustration trying to go from here to home equity.
In the classic holiday movie Miracle on 34th Street, little Susan Walker recognizes her dream home the moment she sees it. Serendipitously, it’s for sale and her family can afford to buy it. That may not be the miracle referred to in the title, but it sure seems miraculous to me. Supposedly we’re in a buyer’s market today, but let me introduce you to two would-be homeowners who aren’t feeling particularly empowered.
That would be my husband, Chris, and me. We’ve been living a pleasant renters’ life since we wed sixteen months ago. Our one-bedroom pad is cute and low maintenance. But much as we love Apartment 2331, we’re starting to feel cramped. Our hobbies take up more space than we have, and we’re ready for the challenge of weeding a garden and caulking a window.
Admittedly, we’ve made things hard on ourselves because we’re pickypickypicky about location. We’ve grown accustomed to living near the South Orange train station and taking NJTransit to work—Chris goes east to New York, I go west to Morristown. New York and Morristown are roughly equidistant from South Orange and neighboring Maplewood. We also love the towns, so we haven’t looked beyond those zip codes. As our real estate agent, Judith Langheld of RE/MAX in Maplewood, keeps reminding us, towns with direct train service to New York are a constant draw, so prices stay high. On the plus side, we have no house to sell, so that gives us flexibility.
The first day Judi took us out, we saw a big old house that needed everything. Total fixer-upper. The perfect blank canvas. Chris bought software and started creating blueprints. We showed the house to our parents, who thought the price wasn’t worth the challenge. So we decided to wait. But within a month, it was gone. “I think the work you needed to do to get that home where you wanted it was a bit daunting,” Judi consoled us. In retrospect, I’m glad we dodged that bullet.
In October, I had my one encounter with love at first sight. (I would say “except for Chris,” but we grew up together, back when my idea of adorable was Grover on Sesame Street.) This house was ideal. Right size, right location, and a great front porch. The price was a stretch, but we could see ourselves there forever, and we offered full price immediately. The seller wouldn’t accept any offers until after the open house, at which point we got into a bidding war with two other suitors. In the end, we lost. I cried. “That proves there are still buyers out there willing to pay up for bells and whistles and location,” Judi said.
Eager to rebound, we bid on a house that needed a little work, but had charming details. We offered about 10 percent below asking price, thinking we’d negotiate and end up somewhere in between.
Insulted, the sellers didn’t even respond. Weeks later, another buyer appeared, and we were asked to participate in a best-and-final-offer duel, which we lost. Judi says that was a case of a seller holding out for his price—though we still don’t know if he ended up settling for less.
We keep hearing about the weak housing market, but we’re amazed at how months go by and inflated prices don’t budge. Though Maplewood and South Orange are in higher demand than most towns, I feel like telling some sellers to wake up and smell the stagnating market.
As I write this dispatch from house-hunt heartache, we’ve found another house that might be the one. It could use a little work—that phrase sets off the parental warning sirens—but we think it’s what we want. Perhaps we’re getting more realistic. For a long time we wished we could combine the windowseat from one house with the huge backyard from another and the gorgeous master bath from a third, and so on. Then maybe I’d have the “Aha!” moment I had when I first visited what became my college campus, or when I first started dating Chris.
Maybe I’m too romantic for the housing scene. But I do feel good about this latest courtship. I’m just trying not to get too swept up in it. If this doesn’t turn into our own “Miracle on Main Street,” it’s nice to know Apartment 2331 isn’t holding a grudge.
