My departure from Massachusetts When my daughter Sydney was born, my wife and I knew that we would need to move closer to our families as she grew up. My wife's family, as well as about 40 of her immediate relatives if you include grandparents and grandchildren, are in New Jersey - so it was a no brainer that we would ultimatel move there.
After speaking with my boss about the possibilities of moving and working remotely, a serendipitous job position opened up in the New Jersey area for a Solutions Architect. I was in the Concept Development group at the time, where I spent most of my time designing/creating proofs-of-concept and engaging customers at a technical level on how to integrate Groove with other technologies/environments. The Solutions Architect role was a natural fit for me, as it would require more customer interaction and bringing deeper technical knowledge to both customers as well as Groove employees.
We began seriously looking for a home in northern New Jersery when Sydney was 10 months old and were shocked at the prices for 3 bedroom/2 bath homes - it was like we were trying to buy a house in central Boston. So after resetting our expectations, we started looking for townhomes that were closer to central New Jersey, but withing a reasonable distance from Penn Station and Newark airport.
Flash forward about 2 months. We have received a couple of offers to buy our house, but both of them were lower than the listed price, so our realtor went to work and helped close the difference for one of the buyers so that we were within $5000 of sale price. We focusing on the higher buyer's offer, who happened to be a real estate broker, and tried to work some creative financing with broker fees. The way real estate broker fees work is that the seller's agent and the buyer's agent agree to split the overall fee (4% for us), and in our case the ratio was 1.5% for our broker and 2.5% for the buyer's broker. The buyer told us that he was representing himself as the buyer, so essentially he was going to get back 2.5% after purchasing the house. We asked if Michael (the buyer) would be willing to lower his broker fee to 1.5% to help use bridge the $5000 gap. Michael was rigid on this aspect of the sale, and firmed declined entertaining any such ideas. My wife and I finally decided to accept his offer, and we asked our realtor to let Michael know of our acceptance. Upon hearing of our acceptance, Michael started to make demands about several appliances being included in the deal like our washer, dryer and refrigerator. Now the washer and dryer were a gift from my wife's parents, and we weren't about to the let them go, so we told our realtor to reject the buyer's demands. Our realtor then came back to us and indicated that Michael was willing to exclude the washer and dryer, but was adamant about including the refrigerator. Again, we told our realtor to reject the buyer's demand. Our realtor soon informed us that Michael was breaking the deal because he wasn't getting the refrigerator. At this point, my wife and I rationalized that the sale of the house should not be cancelled because of an $800 refrigerator, so we agreed to this demand and the intent to purchase was finally signed.
Back in New Jersey, we found a townhouse in West Orange that met our needs and was in a nice neighborhood, so we placed a bid on it knowing that our house was already on it's way to being sold. We had to bid under asking price because there were several issues that needed to be addressed, and we came up with a fair market value with the help of a local realtor. It turns out that there was another buyer in the picture for this townhouse, and he was one of the hockey players for the New Jersey devils hockey team. For those of you who aren't knowledgeable about West Orange, it just happens to be the site for the off-season practice rink for the New Jersey devlis. Needless to say, we were outbid by the other buyer, who paid over asking price. We didn't realize it at the time, but it's a good thing that we were outbid.
Michael was supposed to have a home inspection within 7 business days, and on the 7th day, asked us for an extension because he could not arrange an appointment with any local home inspectors. We agreed to the extension, and allowed him 3 more days to find an inspector, as long as he was willing to move up the closing date by a few days to compensate for the lost time. Well, 2 days later, our realtor informed us that Michael backed out of the sale. The reason Michael gave was that he felt like he was being rushed to purchase the house, and did not want to make hasty decisions. Obviously, my wife and I were quite upset on hearing this and we agreed that we didn't want to deal with him any more, especially given the fact that Michael should know better being a real estate agent. We informed our realtor to collect the $1000 deposit that Michael had given, and to start showing our property again as soon as possible. Now here's the funny thing about the $1000 deposit that was being held in escrow by our realtor - in order for us to get the money, Michael had to sign a form to disburse the funds to us. Additionally, in order for Michael to get the money back, we had to sign a form to disburse the funds to him. The end result was that the $1000 stayed in our realtor's escrow account because neither party was willing to disburse funds to the other party.
Flash forward a couple of months, and we have had a lot of traffic via showings and open houses, but no reasonable offers. The primary reason for low offers can be attributed to the fact that while we arguably had the nicest house on the street, directly across from us was the worst house on the street - a 4 family rental whose occupants belived that bath tubs were excellent trash containers. Well, our friend Michael started to make offers again, this time starting off at $15000 lower than the previously agreed upon sale price. We ignored his noise for a few weeks during which time he incrementally raised his offer by a total of $10000, excluding the washer, drayer and refrigerator. My wife and I decided to wait a little longer to see if any better offers might come along. Two days after Michael's latest offer, he indicated that it was his final offer and if we did not accept, he would start looking elsewhere. My wife and I sat down and thought about this offer - was he bluffing or not? Were we willing to sell at an additional $5000 reduction? We concluded that the toll on my wife during all of the showings and open houses was taking it's effect , and the holiday season was quickly coming upon us - so we reluctantly agreed to Michael's offer. This time, the home inspection happened within a few days and we were on our way to signing the Purchase and Sales (P&S) agreement. For those of you who have never signed a P&S, the buyer must place a deposit for 5% of the total sales price, so it is unlikely that someone will change their mind after signing. Well, 3 days after the home inspection, Michael claimed that there were a couple of cracks in the foundation and that it would cost $1000 to seal via hydro-cement, so he wanted us to reduce the sales price by $1000 - or we could include the refrigerator in lieu of a price reduction. What a slimebag. I was about to ask for a copy of the estimate he received for repairs and challenge that a lower price could be found, but then I realized it would only delay the process of selling my house, so we agreed to part with our refrigerator.
As we approached P&S, I was amazed to find out the additional costs with selling a house in Massachusetts including:
- Attorney fees (almost $1000)
- Registration fees ($150)
- Massachusetts stamp tax ($4.56 per $1000 of sales price of home)
- Title transfer fees ($100)
- Broker fees (4% of sales price of home)
Flash forward to Friday (Nov. 14), the date of P&S. Experienced a few last minute fire drills including fixing up botched paperwork by Hadlock Law Offices for past refinances of my mortgage, and the requirement for my neighbor to sign a 6D form and get it notarized. My realtor and attorney (Gilmartin Magence & Ross in Newton, MA) came through with flying colors and take care of everything - one of the few good experience we had while selling our house.
Flash forward to today. So my house is sold, but we haven't moved to New Jersey just yet. We plan on moving to Maryland, living with my mother for a few months to save some money so that we can buy a place in New Jersey without having to settle for what is currently available. The realization has not hit me yet that I don't live in Massachusetts anymore, but I have to say that I really loved it. Being in the Boston suburbs was a fantastic experience, and is still in my top 5 places to live in the US.
1:07:40 PM 
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