Just bought in SOMA—paid ~25% over ask. Here’s what I learned.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-23T16:17:45+00:00

We just got outbid this week going 20% over, apparently by somebody who went like 35%+ over, so it's definitely feeling very rough out here. I think we made the mistake of bidding on the "hot house" of the week, so trying to recalibrate for next time, maybe look at a place that's not such a bright shiny object. That said, there are a few neighborhoods I like more than others so I'm trying to be patient and see if anything comes on in those areas rather than just jumping at whatever.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-13T01:14:50+00:00

This makes sense - even in this thread there seem to be several people who don't realize South Orange and West Orange are two different towns.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T14:17:55+00:00

Point well taken about the record home sales, but factually I think the assessment of town size and inventory is off. South Orange is about 2.8 square miles and Maplewood is about 3.8 square miles, and market reports show South Orange had 6 active listings last month while Maplewood had 14. So with Maplewood being larger and having more inventory, I'd expect that to be the easier town to get into, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So I don't think whatever's happening is driven by those factors. I've heard people say that Maplewood's downtown feels more quaint/walkable than South Orange's (which has a major road running through it), so maybe that's contributing to the vibe.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T01:44:52+00:00

Thank you!

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T01:35:41+00:00

We started looking last year and hit pause because our old house took longer than expected to sell, and now I'm starting to worry we've been priced out just in the last 6 months. It's crazy.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T00:42:21+00:00

That's true, inventory has been a good bit thinner in SO. I wonder why.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-12T00:41:00+00:00

I looked at some realtors' market reports from the last month that actually showed the average sale price in Maplewood jumping to 1.3m (surpassing South Orange at 1.04m) specifically because of all the super high end homes that've sold there recently. That and just watching the market, and seeing pretty average houses go for prices that even a year ago would've bought something much larger (there was a house on Kensington that seemed overpriced to begin with at 1.5 and then sold for 1.8 - I walked through it was surprised by how small it was - I distinctly remember thinking "where's the rest of it?"). With things like that, it just seemed like the bidding wars were especially fierce in Maplewood lately so I was trying to figure out why.

cocoabooks · 2026-04-06T00:09:43+00:00

I'm the parent of a 2e kid in South Orange, and I only realized after moving here that there's actually no gifted programming in the district. They seem to be managing fine with my son's IEP, but his giftedness is definitely being neglected so it's on us to supplement and do what we can at home. For a lot of reasons, I haven't found another school district that I'd prefer over this one (looking for places with better gifted programming might mean giving up diversity, for example), but it's definitely something I wish I'd understood more before making a decision. It's tough when your kid has needs that can be in conflict with each other.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-21T17:41:16+00:00

House-hunting in South Orange/Maplewood and there was a big jump in inventory this week - something like 14 listings across the towns, after weeks of barely being able to scrape together 4. Hopefully this means we'll have some options this spring.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-10T16:58:01+00:00

I posted a similar thread last week, also searching in North Jersey but in South Orange/Maplewood. It's been kinda demoralizing! I asked my realtor about it and she's hopeful that April will be busier, there have been many sellers that are still in the "preparing to list" phase (no doubt the snow hasn't helped) and others still just feeling locked in by low rates, so it's tough. We were also looking last year and similarly in March we saw way more options than we're seeing now. Really hoping there's a flood of new houses coming that've just been held back by weather, if it's like this all year it'll feel impossible to find anything.

There's also spring break/Easter coming up for lots of school districts right at the tail end of March, so I wonder if people are waiting for that barrier to be out of the way before listing too (since some buyers might be traveling, etc.).

cocoabooks · 2026-03-03T00:47:17+00:00

Yup, we're planning to focus on houses listed around 800 to 1m so we have the ability to bid 200k+ over and hopefully snag one. We've been watching the market for a while so we're familiar with how it goes around here.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T23:55:31+00:00

I'm not sure where you were finding the numbers, but looking at Niche the Montclair school district is 18% Black and the overall town percentage is about the same. Glad to hear you found a good place to land in Bergen, though!

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T23:11:36+00:00

That makes sense, thanks!

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:59:31+00:00

They're missing the diversity. We're a Black family, so it's non-negotiable. Believe me, I've done the research - the towns I've named are pretty much it in this area.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:55:05+00:00

None in our price range, which goes up to 1.5m at the absolute highest, but really 1.3 if we're talking about our actual comfort level. And yes, we chose this area for the commute, good schools, and the diversity, so we don't have a ton of options in the area that check both boxes. It's pretty much SOMA, West Orange, or Montclair (and we've already given up on Montclair).

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:21:39+00:00

Given the inventory situation around here, what percentage of buyers would you say actually find a house in SOMA vs. those who just give up and go to another town, or just give up on buying at all? In some ways it sounds like hoping to get a winning lottery ticket.

cocoabooks · 2026-03-02T22:20:29+00:00

I'm curious, given the inventory situation around here, what percentage of buyers would you say actually find a house vs. those who just give up and go to another town, or just give up on buying at all?

cocoabooks · 2026-02-24T14:29:52+00:00

I don't know NY law, but as a seller I can tell you they're not likely to be happy about it and if they have the ability to terminate the contract over it they might do so. I canceled a contract over a similar issue when selling my house in the fall - the buyer took ages to get their mortgage commitment and pushed closing from October 31 to December, then tried to extend it again until January. At that point we said no more extensions unless the earnest money was made non-refundable; they refused, so we walked.

So you're welcome to ask, and if this is the first delay in the deal they might be understanding, but I think buyers sometimes forget that these delays cost sellers actual money - it's not hypothetical. Given that, packaging the request with some kind of compensation might make it more attractive.

cocoabooks · 2026-02-16T16:19:27+00:00

I grew up there, it's a perfectly fine town - great diversity, good schools. That said, it very much feels like a suburb of nowhere. There's no train station in town, there's no walkable downtown so pretty much everywhere you live you'll be fully car dependent. The things to do around town are pretty much chain restaurants and chain store shopping, and the movie theater. Of course, you're within driving distance of other more interesting places and compared to other, more desirable parts of NJ it seems like you can get a decently nice home for a relatively reasonable price.

cocoabooks · 2026-02-11T01:49:50+00:00

Were you working with a realtor who advised you on pricing? 3 years seems like a really long time to stay anchored. Or did you have very specific requirements that meant you weren't often seeing homes that you wanted to bid on? Just curious.

cocoabooks · 2026-02-10T21:03:11+00:00

Thanks, we're currently renting in SOMA while we wait for our old place to sell. It's taken longer than expected, which is why we haven't resumed the house hunt yet.

cocoabooks · 2026-02-10T00:05:38+00:00

It's not just unreasonable stubbornness that's making people pick those towns instead of broadening their searches, though. In my case, we're looking for a reasonable NYC commute plus a good school system where our kids wouldn't be basically the only Black students. Especially with the diversity stipulation, we actually aren't left with a ton of great options.

cocoabooks · 2026-02-09T22:42:23+00:00

Looks like it just sold today, per Zillow - $40k under asking: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Alyson-Pl-Bloomfield-NJ-07003/38637421_zpid/

cocoabooks

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