Last September (2019) we moved back to the States from living in Thailand for 2 years. We owned a house in Boston but knew we wanted to relocate to New Jersey to be closer to family and friends! We immediately started house hunting. My husband grew up in Edison, New Jersey so while he was familiar with the area, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought it would be helpful to compile 5 tips for house hunting in New Jersey for anyone who might be looking!

I documented a lot of our house hunting through Instagram Stories. Watch my house hunting journey on Instagram here.

1. Know The limits of your commute

What I found helpful was to center where we were going to live around what my commute was going to look like. Commute time, along with budget and list of must-haves, helped narrow down where we were going to start our search. I knew that I was going to have to commute into our Manhattan office from time to time, so I wanted to be accessible to NJ Transit. While certain counties have shorter commute times (Middlesex County, Essex County, Hudson County, Union County, or Bergen County) I didn’t mind sitting on the train for a little longer if I had to. What’s great about NJ transit is that it spans all across New Jersey.

If you’re looking for jobs, you’re not limited to Manhattan or Philadelphia. New Jersey has it’s hubs as well such as Princeton, Somerville, Westfield, Summit, Morristown and the beach towns such as: Point Pleasant, Asbury Park.

My team is largely based in Philadelphia, and I knew I’d have to commute there as well, so I was also looking for proximity to SEPTA, which is Pennsylvanni’s equivalent to NJ transit.

My biggest piece of advice is to have realistic expectations about travel time and commuting. I wanted my commute to be under 1hr45min. Since I can work from home most of the time, I didn’t feel like I needed my commute to be any shorter than that. Making the sacrifice to sit on the train longer meant that we could afford a larger house with more land.

2. Have a realistic budget range

When John and I were looking at houses, our absolute max budget was $500k. We sold our house in Boston for $550k and wanted some money leftover for renovations and for John’s recording studio. 

We determined our budget by coming up with a number that we were comfortable paying per month and then worked backwards from there.

For example, we didn’t want our monthly payments to be more than $1,700. We used online calculators to get a rough idea of what our realistic budget range should be. Here’s a helpful, free Affordability Calculator from getarate.com. 

3. Have a list of must-haves and deal-breakers 

One of the strong selling points of New Jersey is that it has a little bit of everything. If you enjoy the mountains, some counties you can look at are Warren and Sussex Counties. The Poconos in Pennsylvania are also an option. If you’re a beach goer, Jersey has some of the finest beaches such as Wildwood, Seaside, Atlantic City, or Brigantine. If you’re a city goer, you have Manhattan and Philadelphia in just a few hours time. Understanding your lifestyle and what’s important to you will also help determine what location you’ll be looking in.

When we were looking at houses, we wanted a little bit of everything. We knew we wanted to live in the countryside and have a small farm, but we also didn’t want to be too far from civilization. 

Our must-haves list were:

• Barns or Outbuildings
  
  We both have a lot of hobbies and we wanted barns or outbuildings to have the space to be able to do them! John is a musician and wanted space to have a recording studio and I’m a photographer and wanted space to be able to shoot creative portraits.

• Land 

Our dream with our next house was to start a small farm. I knew I wanted chickens (today I have 17 of them) and we wanted to start growing our own food. While you don’t technically need a lot of land to have a hobby farm, we wanted 5+ acres because in New Jersey to be able have your property be farmland assessed (meaning paying less in taxes) you need at least 5 acres. You also need to sell at least $1000 in goods a year.

• Not a Fixer-Upper
  
  Our first house in Boston was a fixer-upper. We lived in a constant construction zone and it was exhausting. We were about to start a family and knew that we didn’t want a house that needed major repairs but we were okay if the house just needed cosmetic renovations. 

• Under a 2 Hour Commute to NYC or Philadelphia

  
  I didn’t mind a mixed commute of driving and public transit, but I knew that I wanted it to be under 2 hours.
  
  

• No cul-de-sac or cookie cutter homes.
  
  We knew we wanted a house with some personality and charm. We ended up looking at a lot of older homes built in the 1700 and 1800s!

Other than those general must-haves, we kept an open mind! You’ll want to sit down with your partner and come up with a realistic list of must-haves that you can both agree on. 

4. Hire Movers

I was in my first trimester of pregnancy and we had a big move from Boston to western New Jersey on our hands. We made the big decision to hire movers as we had house full of furniture. It was the best decision we ever made! If I could give anyone advice it would be set aside some money in your budget to hire movers. Our movers came at 8am in the morning and we moved into our new house at 11PM that evening - that includes the 6 hour drive from Boston to Hunterdon County! We could have never done it at that speed by ourselves.

A great place to start is looking at New Jersey Transport Inc Moving Company. They are residential, commercial, and even eviction movers NJ, so they can help you with all of your moving needs. They have a free moving quote calculator on their website that is helpful in understanding how much money you’ll have to put aside to hire movers!

5. Don’t be afraid of looking at houses by yourself

We hired a realtor, but we also did a lot of house hunting on our own. Go on Zillow or RedFin, make a list of houses you might want to see and drive out to them. It will save you a lot of time because you might drive out to the houses and immediately hate the neighborhood or you might realize that it’s too far from where you’d like to be.

We saw a lot of houses with our realtor but we looked at a lot more on our own. We drove out to a lot of houses that we immediately crossed off our list for one reason or another. The house we ended up buying was a house we saw on our own that was listed “For Sale By Owner”! We saw the house fell in love at first sight!