OT: Jets Writer Connor Hughes can’t find a home with $600K budget

[Vudu]

 

High-school sweethearts with good jobs, a baby on the way and a $600,000 budget can’t find a house after 2 years of hunting. ‘It is just so demoralizing, depressing, and defeating’

 

Connor Hughes and his wife Brieanne both grew up outside Philadelphia. They met working at an ice cream shop in high school and stayed together during college despite going to different schools. Hughes says they’ve both been fortunate enough to find decent-paying jobs, and they’ve been smart with their money, knowing in the back of their minds that they wanted to buy a house one day, with more than $100,000 saved. They’ve even got a baby on the way. There’s just one problem: They’re losing hope of finding anything affordable in south Jersey and ever moving out of their two-bedroom rental in the suburbs of Princeton, New Jersey.

 

Both in their early 30s and expecting a baby girl next month, Hughes, who’s a NFL reporter, told Fortune they’ve been looking for a house for two years, and it’s been a disaster. He and his wife, who works in health care, have been living in an apartment less than 1,000 square feet in size for around five years. Their plan was to live there for two years, get married, buy a house, and start a family, but “everything went to sh*t” about two years into that plan, when 2020 happened.

 

“The baby’s one week closer and I still don’t have a house for my kid,” Hughes told Fortune.

 

They went to eight open houses on a single Sunday in May, he said, and those summed up the state of the New Jersey housing market where, as Fortune previously reported, “everyone’s fighting over crumbs” in a market that “sucks” for buyers right now. For instance, Hughes said they pulled up to Church Rd. in Mount Laurel to see a four-bedroom, three-bath home and it was filled with parked cars and a line out the door, like someone was having a party.

 

“We didn’t even bother walking into it,” he said.

 

In the two years that they’ve been house hunting, they’ve put down countless offers, raised their budget substantially, and compromised on location, from central to north to south Jersey. When they first started looking, their budget was $500,000. That quickly changed after seeing “total disasters” listed in that range. Hughes recalled a Hopewell house listed at $510,000 that looked like someone just “hit command minimize and just shrunk it.” (His real-estate agent at the time told them they should offer $560,000 if they liked it because four offers were already on the table.) After a few more dispiriting open houses, they decided to push their budget to $550,000 and look at other towns. After years of searching and pushing their budget close to $600,000, they still haven’t closed on a home.

 

We’re pregnant. We have our baby coming. We can’t wait to be parents,” Hughes said, but this endless search isn’t really allowing him to get excited.

 

New Jersey’s housing markets have a lot of demand coupled with very tight supply right now, and it’s sending home values up even now that the pandemic is officially over, fueling pandemic-like bidding wars as far as the eye can see.

 

Hughes recalled one humbling bid they made, in Mount Laurel, on a house smaller than they would have liked that was listed at $450,000. They had already given up on finding their “forever home” and thought this one would be good for the next three to five years, with a backyard for their kid. Hughes said his realtor, who they’re still working with, told him they’d have a good chance of getting it if they offered $465,000 or more, so they started there and eventually escalated to $500,000.

 

They even wrote a letter to the owners, attaching a photo of themselves holding an ultrasound image of their baby. “We were going after the heartstrings, like we were doing everything, like it was us arms around each other, picture with the ultrasound, talking about our dog, our baby, everything—like let’s go get this house,” Hughes said. The next morning their realtor called with the news that the sellers took a higher bid, all cash.

 

Before they started looking, Hughes said half-a-million dollars was a lot of money in his mind. On paper it can seem that way, considering New Jersey’s average home value is $457,045, but potential sellers are holding on to their low mortgage rates, making inventory even tighter, and driving up home prices. Hughes had a sort-of epiphany about this lock-in effect after speaking with one of his father-in-law’s friends, an empty-nester—the perfect example of a homeowner that’s choosing not to sell despite wanting to downsize, because he admitted he didn’t want to lose his 2% rate.

 

After two years of looking, Hughes said they’ve seen about everything imaginable. Floors that creaked with every step, a listing that hit the market with no photos, another that sold for $60,000 over asking in all cash ( Hughes said they had bid $50,000 over ask). There was even a home that his realtor said he couldn’t let them buy in good faith because it looked like it was built without permits. It’s just been brutal, Hughes said, adding that talking to a Fortune housing reporter felt like a therapy session.

 

Hughes, who started the call with upbeat energy, adopted a progressively bleaker tone as he recounted his long and torturous search for a starter home, like the townhome listed for $540,000 that smelled like smoke for some unclear reason (that one sold for $30,000 over ask).

 

This is “supposed to be this time of your life where you’re so happy and instead it’s just a constant reminder of, ‘I don’t even have a house.’ And it’s just defeating, day after day, week after week, you put a bid in, you lose…It is just so demoralizing, depressing, and defeating.”

 

Their initial strategy was to wait for prices to drop, then enter the housing market and start their life as a family, Hughes said. “They’re not dropping and now we’re sh*t out of luck … I got a baby coming in a month, like we’re out of luck.”

 

https://fortune.com/2023/05/27/tight-housing-market-couple-demoralized-real-estate-bidding-wars/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fortunemagazine&xid=soc_socialflow_facebook_FORTUNE&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR0SoDM4G5tEvcT8SjbgocZ1-4TJ0U514WVL4u608PVg87RNrrMrW_K9mM0_aem_th_AbxoOTMiz-vTRJoAFErnKQQPRnns5DW_DhbT70D43qgCTNanBoWfm3XWTutGKNw7iXk&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

[Jets4Life1979]

**** connor hughes

[JTJet]

And that's all by design. 

Welcome to the renting class dickhead. 

[Jet_Engine1]

Move. Just bought a 2500 sq/ft 4 BR on nearly .5 acres in Viera/Melbourne FL for $525K. Putting a LOT of work into it, but appraised at nearly 600k. Bought the "ugly" house in the neighborhood. 

 

When I'm done, it'll be a 700K+ house. 

[Barry McCockinner]

move south, problem solved.

[Hal N of Provo]

4 doors down was from that area.

They moved down here without jobs, but quickly both found a job and bought a house.   
 

But don’t come to Texas Connor.  I hear Alabama is nice.  

[Joe Willie White Shoes]

8 minutes ago, JTJet said:

And that's all by design. 

Welcome to the renting class dickhead. 

What does that even mean (I’m afraid to ask)?

[Hal N of Provo]

2 minutes ago, Joe Willie White Shoes said:

What does that even mean (I’m afraid to ask)?

Corporations are buying houses for rentals and we already have low inventory for 15 years.   The percentage of home ownership is expected to drop.  

[PS17]

IBTL 

[Larz]

#jetstaxisreal

[HawkeyeJet]

They ask what  is there  to like about living in Iowa, Hawkeye?

[Matt39]

Ok?

[jtomm]

..move  🌈

[SomebodytoAnybody47]

Why is this an article?

[Bobby816]

Who cares. Lower your budget or move.

[bla bla bla]

Can sympathize, looked for 2.5 years. Ended up bidding 8% over asking, eventually got it. Absolutely brutal to find reasonable housing anymore.

[T0mShane]

FWIW, my dental hygienist and her bf went to an open house for a $335k fixer-upper in the absolute sticks of central Connecticut, and when they got there the line was so deep that there were two cop cars managing the parking situation. Crazy sh*t.

[pointman]

lol

[Joe Willie White Shoes]

17 minutes ago, Hal N of Provo said:

Corporations are buying houses for rentals and we already have low inventory for 15 years.   The percentage of home ownership is expected to drop.  

It’s quite a bit more complicated than that, and it’s not by “design” or a corporate conspiracy.  Inventory is down significantly for a number of economic and societal reasons:

-homeowners with pre 2022 low mortgage interest rates are not selling because of the uncertainty in buying a new home with high rates

-COVID caused many sellers to stay in their homes for financial and health reasons

- Covid led to a migration from cities to suburbs increasing the number of buyers and the price of houses

-the work from home culture has resulted in a lack of movement when people change jobs, decreasing inventory 

- investors are buying sone inventory to take advantage of the sellers market
 

-the number of buyers has increased because of the COVID migration, and because the low inventory has kept them without homes and in the market for extended periods 

 

 

[Matt39]

4 minutes ago, bla bla bla said:

Can sympathize, looked for 2.5 years. Ended up bidding 8% over asking, eventually got it. Absolutely brutal to find reasonable housing anymore.

It’s a big country out there

[jtomm]

[jtomm]

2 minutes ago, jtomm said:

or..

 

[Lupz27]

1 hour ago, Jets4Life1979 said:

**** connor hughes

Exactly!

Because you have a platform we have to listen to your sob story that isn’t anywhere near close to about 75% if not more of the people in this country.

**** OFF!

Should have stopped being so sensitive to the mean tweets by the red faced man you would have a McMansion for 600k.

[Rhg1084]

He should move down south. Can he do his job remotely? 

[Sarge4Tide]

55 minutes ago, Hal N of Provo said:

I hear Alabama is nice.  

[Matt39]

2 minutes ago, Rhg1084 said:

He should move down south. Can he do his job remotely? 

We saw the writing on the wall a decade ago. Northeast housing is silly. Perhaps we move back north at some point later in life. But yeah, move in your 30’s out of there and figure it out when you’re more settled. He could always write for another team and there are healthcare jobs everywhere. 

[sourceworx]

1 hour ago, Hal N of Provo said:

I hear Alabama is nice.  

I'd rather be stabbed repeatedly in my balls with a rusty butter knife than move to Alabama.

[The Crusher]

I got the last well priced house in America in 2003. Sorry dudes. 

[IndianaJet]

Then there's the hidden cost of having to pay a high property tax on top of the inflated home values.  What is it in Jersey....3%?

Then the extra extra hidden cost of only getting to deduct $10K of your $15K property tax bill from your fed taxes because of the tax changes in 2017.

 

[fusionCA]

I live in Los Angeles

his budget is not enough to buy an empty lot in the desert 

[Hal N of Provo]

39 minutes ago, sourceworx said:

I'd rather be stabbed repeatedly in my balls with a rusty butter knife than move to Alabama.

I recommended Alabama to Connor.   He’ll love it.  

[Larz]

1 hour ago, Joe Willie White Shoes said:

It’s quite a bit more complicated than that, and it’s not by “design” or a corporate conspiracy.  Inventory is down significantly for a number of economic and societal reasons:

-homeowners with pre 2022 low mortgage interest rates are not selling because of the uncertainty in buying a new home with high rates

-COVID caused many sellers to stay in their homes for financial and health reasons

- Covid led to a migration from cities to suburbs increasing the number of buyers and the price of houses

-the work from home culture has resulted in a lack of movement when people change jobs, decreasing inventory 

- investors are buying sone inventory to take advantage of the sellers market
 

-the number of buyers has increased because of the COVID migration, and because the low inventory has kept them without homes and in the market for extended periods 

 

 

And people like me with ridiculously low interest rates are on the sidelines 

[PS17]

3 minutes ago, Hal N of Provo said:

I recommended Alabama to Connor.   He’ll love it.  

[Joe Willie White Shoes]

1 hour ago, Matt39 said:

We saw the writing on the wall a decade ago. Northeast housing is silly. Perhaps we move back north at some point later in life. But yeah, move in your 30’s out of there and figure it out when you’re more settled. He could always write for another team and there are healthcare jobs everywhere. 

Some people prefer the Northeast for many many reasons. And some people do not want to move away from family, especially when they have or are about to have children.  I had an opportunity to move to a city in the Southwest from the NY Metro area many years ago when my company relocated.  I investigated the area and decided to find a new job and stay in the NY area. My wife and I were from the same town in Long Island and I had young children and did not want to move them away from their grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. I also did not want to leave family.  Lastly, the culture and lifestyle in the Southwest was as different as you can get from the NYC area. I wanted no part of living in the SW and did not want to raise my children there.  

I stayed and it was the right decision for me and my family .  I just made the same decision again. I recently retired.  My family, including my children, all live in the NYC area.  I wanted no part of moving to Florida or NC or Arizona.  I sold my house and live in a wonderful community in the NYC suburbs. Again, I am very happy.  Some people do not want to pack up and leave everything they know and love.  

 

Moreover, some of the strongest seller's markets are in the South and Southwest - Georgia, Idaho, Tenessee, North Carolina.  This is not a NYC and California phenomenon. It is happening in many locations throughout the US.  Florida real estate is red hot as well. 

[sciond]

2 hours ago, Barry McCockinner said:

move south, problem solved.

Depends where. The good parts of NC and SC are not cheap anymore. Same for Florida and the desirable areas are not cheap anymore. ATL is though the roof too...