Caty

I have friends who live in Summit NJ & I believe it has good schools. It's a nice town & good for your commutes, but there are other towns as well I'm sure. Definitely look at Newsweek's best high schools list. Houlihan Lawrence offers good school reports but I think they only do NY - try to find a similar real estate website that offers good school reports for NJ - the reason being is that you can't go by Newsweek alone otherwise you're limiting your search. For example, some towns have i.e., 3 elementary schools & one is not so great but 2 are great - therefore because of the one weak neighborhood in X town, the high school is not ranked as high as Y town in Newsweek, but so what if elementary, middle, & Jr high are top notch etc. And chances are if the town lists a top Newsweek high school, the house prices are through the roof. And don't be put off by people who say you can't get a good home for 400k. Please. If you need to, rent for a year or 2. You can save extra money for a down payment. Prices will come down. Maybe you can't get a Great home this year but you will a year or 2 from now. - Thu Oct 30 2008, 09:05

also search Newsweek 1000 best public school ratings. Houlihan Lawrence's website has a user friendly school search section and school reports (although I'd go w/ the agency actually listing the property) The school reports show year by year how that school is performing against state averages. I have friends who live in Summit NJ and the schools are supposed to be good. I'm not sure what's up & coming. I've been looking, too, & noticed that the list price can be 20-25% higher than what it sells for - so don't think you're automatically priced out if the list is priced higher than your max. - Fri Apr 11 2008, 07:18

Prices in the Westchester area have only just started to come down, I'd say, around Feb/Mar 2008. It still has a year or 2 at least to go until it hits bottom. In Larchmont in Feb I put in a bid 35% lower than the asking, they said no, but then 2.5 months later they said yes & by that time I didn't want to buy it b/c my job was unstable. Right now, some houses are priced closer to fair some are not - I think it depends on the approach of the seller: do they want to pitch high to get a low ball bid close to what they really want or do they want get more views & hope someone falls in love and buys? Therefore, I would do much research on Property Shark & town records & figure out what sold for what price in x year & figure out the averages. Yes, exactly, your scenario sounds suspect. If there are lots of "similar" homes why that one & why now? Can you rent for a year? There are lots of homes for sale being offered for rent b/c they're not selling. Good luck. - Wed Sep 10 2008, 05:39

Has anyone looked into the Financial District? I used to live down there and just as I moved, they were building tons and tons of new condos. My thought was: how are they going to sell all these condos at the price they want? Does anyone know if the prices have come down? My friend's building is half empty. Has anyone been looking? - Tue Apr 29 2008, 10:56

why not buy a condo? If you can't sell it for what you want in 5 years, rent it out. If I were you, I'd wait a year to buy an apartment. A ton of them are coming on the market & prices will certainly be lower then or even just month by month they will continue to drop. I'm looking & noticed the list prices are far from what they're selling for. And find out the prior sales history of what you're going to buy from http://www.propertyshark.com or Trulia or your agent to make sure you're not overpaying. Don't pay more for something than you can rent it out for. Good luck - Fri Apr 11 2008, 06:49

search http://www.propertyshark.com 5 free records a day for prior sale history; Trulia also has some prior sales history records. If you don't know the address exactly, guess, & the search will provide a list, cross check on Google Maps for one that's near yours. Build up a database etc. - Fri Apr 11 2008, 06:28