Hi Everyone,

My wife and I are looking to relocate (from Princeton Jct, NJ) to ease her commute.  Her office is 2 blocks from Grand Central.  We only recently moved our target to househacking a 2-4 family (initially we looked at getting a condo, really liked SoNo).  We have been looking in Westchester County, NY & Fairfield County, CT.  Her limit is 90 min train ride from GC which basically puts us at Fairfield Metro as the max.  

Westchester taxes are INSANE (even worse than notoriously high NJ taxes).  We're trying to stay sub $400k (with upwards of 20% down).  We will be putting our house up for sale shortly.  I have some folks who've expressed interest, so we may be able to sell without putting it on the market.

Since we're empty nesters with an older dog (he just turned 12 yesterday), we'd prefer to be on 1st fl for all our sakes.

My 5 yr goal is to acquire 2 MFH per year over the next 5 years.  I'm looking to connect with other investors to do joint deals.  What I bring to the table is:

* strong analytical skills

* come from a family of builders, so pretty proficient in finding the "gotchas" pretty quickly

* fairly keen sense of aesthetics & what aspiring renters prefer

* good knowledge of basic maintenance and repairs 

* 30+ years of marketing/marketing communications background

* strong negotiating skills

Would love to connect with others in the area.  We're up here looking at neighborhoods almost weekly.

I have 1 property that we're considering making an offer on, it's now almost 180 DoM, fits most of our criteria, saw some potential "gotchas" that would make it less attractive for non owner occupant investors, so not sure what I'm missing and why other's haven't tried to grab it yet.  Our current home is a "destined to be yours" home, I'm beginning to get the feeling the one we're looking at may be another example.  

Our current home was on the market in 2005 for $450k (3Br/1.5Ba ranch, full unfinished basement with Bilco doors, on 3/4 acre next to a golf course), languished & pulled off market before we had a chance to see inside.  In 2006 it came back on, there was 1 Open House (we stopped & my wife fell in love right away).  Our agent told us "no seller in this town would agree to a sellers contingency" (we'll close once we close on selling the townhouse we owned at the time).  Turns out the price dropped $50k to $400k, we negotiated down to $385k and seller accepted our contingency and countered that she wanted a firm date we would list our townhouse.  Inspection found failed septic system ($15k replacement) which seller paid for.  We put the townhouse on the market the Sunday before Thanksgiving, had showings that week and accepted deal on Fri at 5pm for 1.5% below our asking.  The impossible deal came together (though technically there was a 5 day period where we had like $200k in the bank but were technically homeless since the closing got pushed to Jan 2, 2007).

Tomorrow our agent will make an offer, we will see if "impossible deals" can repeat.

Thanks and looking forward to meeting you.