Finding a Property

January 4, 2005 11:00 AM

My fiancee and I want to find and buy a small property in NJ or NY, and build a house. I am clueless about how to begin the process of finding a property.

I'd need to commute to Manhattan from the place, which means we're talking about areas that are popular -- which means there's probably not a lot of available residential property, and what there is might be way outside our budget. We're looking for a rural type area with some green grass and stuff.

I'm looking for general advice here. How impossible is this? What's a good way to find a property? What kind of prices should I expect?

I've done some searching via Google and real estate sites but I don't find much of anything. I'm not sure if that's because there are literally no residential lots available, or because I'm looking in the wrong places. I've lived in rented apartments all my life.

posted by edlundart to home & garden (13 comments total)

There probably isn't a ton of unimproved land available. You should Google "building lots" + "real estate" + the counties you're looking in. Try this site and this site.

Good luck!
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:10 AM on January 4, 2005

You probably wont find many vacent lots but you can always find a fix-r-upper and tear it down.

If you have friends who own homes in the area ask around and see if anybody can give you the name of a good realtor. Tell the realtor exactly what you're looking for and be specific. Don't be afraid to drop them and find another one if they're useless and/or pushy.
posted by bondcliff at 11:13 AM on January 4, 2005

Apparently, the recently passed Highlands Act is going to severely limit the available buildable land in Northern NJ. So that's bad. I don't know the details, just that my father (from NJ) was bitching about it over Xmas.
posted by smackfu at 11:41 AM on January 4, 2005

call a realtor?
posted by glenwood at 12:03 PM on January 4, 2005

Check out the Kinnellon, Denville, Boonton area in New Jersey. Commuter trains connect the area to NYC, and there are a lot of lakes, streams, wooded lots and horse farms out there. Some beautiful country.
posted by mds35 at 12:25 PM on January 4, 2005

Thanks for the tips so far. mds35, I am seeing a couple of interesting listings in Boonton, NJ. Had never even heard of it, so thanks for that tip. The idea of buying a fixer-upper and tearing it down may also be a possibility.
posted by edlundart at 12:35 PM on January 4, 2005

No smackfu, that is good. NJ already has too many houses and too much development.

Finding an undeveloped lot in the NYC area that is for sale will be tough as developers snatch them up so quickly. Most available lots will probably not be in town but will rather be a farm outside of town. Since so few undeveloped lots are on the market at any given time, one trick is to find a piece of undeveloped property and then contact the owner to see if they are interested in selling.
posted by caddis at 12:46 PM on January 4, 2005

Also, Boonton is nice but it is a very long commute from there into Manhattan. Check out the train and connecting transportation schedules before you get too excited. You probably also want to find out how long the waiting list is to get parking at the train station. Perhaps Boonton has sufficient capacity so that you can ignore this little annoyance.
posted by caddis at 12:52 PM on January 4, 2005

I don't mean to be discouraging but if you want something in the NY Metro area that is also near mass transit, I'm afraid that it's going to be *very* slim pickings in terms of finding a lot and building on it. Particularly in NY, Westchester and Long Island have fantastically high real estate taxes and are, for the most part, entirely snatched up by developers already. You will probably find that purchasing the land, building on and landscaping your new home will be exorbitantly more expensive than purchasing a pre-existing home.

I know of two people who have moved into the area with plans similar to yours and both abadoned them shortly thereafter.

Sorry to be the party pooper - maybe someone else has more optimistic advice? :\
posted by moxyberry at 1:05 PM on January 4, 2005

caddis is right about the commute. It's a bit of a trip, but if you want to live in the country and work in NYC, you'll either have to get used to driving in traffic or stock up on reading material for the long train ride home. Still, Boonton is doable, and much more affordable than anything in Westchester.
posted by mds35 at 2:15 PM on January 4, 2005

My friend's parents live in Denville, NJ. Easy commute to the city; bus not train, but maybe there's train service as well. The area seemed very nice and kinda suburban-verging-on-rural. People had very large yards and there were daries nearby (but I didnt' visit any or anything, so it could be totally wrong).
posted by zpousman at 2:56 PM on January 4, 2005

Well, ideally I'd like a short commute, but obviously it's not easy unless you have millions to spend... so the tips about Denville and Boonton etc are helpful. The plan is to eventually not depend on commuting, so maybe I could put up with a somewhat long commute for a while... thanks everyone.
posted by edlundart at 3:24 PM on January 4, 2005

I'm gonna say call a realtor.

[/biased, but still think that's your best bet]
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 5:19 PM on January 4, 2005