We did own a house for ten years while our children were growing up, complete with playhouse and tree house, but it proved too costly when the economy soured in the mid-nineties. and so we sold it and moved back to our beloved apartment location, just blocks from Whole Foods and Belgiovine's great meatballs and five favorite restaurants: Rustica, Next Door, Uncle Moustache, Palazzo and Giotto. All was good until 2013 when the landlord after 50 years sold the two buildings in Montclair to an apartment investment group in Glen Rock that saw the opportunity to jack up rents, drive tenants out, renovate and charge new tenants $1100 more. It was time to move.
I initially wanted to live in the condo development where for many summers I have played tennis with friends and swam. The units were in our price range, but my wife wanted one that looked at out at woods and had a layout featuring a bedroom on the ground level as well as on the second floor so guests and us would have some privacy. While waiting for one of those units to become available we spent months going to open houses without a realtor knowing that if we found something we liked we would go to an old family friend who was an agent. We had a year to look before our lease ended and another rent increase would slam our wallets. Every Sunday, we would visit 3 or 4 perspective homes, but the months went by quickly with only a few being in the price, space and amenities range that matched the condo we awaited to come on the market.
One weekend in the dead of winter, I saw a split level on the market. It was not much to look at from the one photo on Zillow, but I liked the ease of traversing the short staircases that split-levels offered and it was an estate sale so I thought we could make a low offer and have a budget for renovations.
