I was once asked to visit the home of a former customer (one of my favorites if you happen to be reading this) who, after many years of living in a starter home with his wife and small kids, was ready to make the next move. He asked me to sit down at his kitchen table, then opened a drawer and pulled out a yellow legal pad that had the title “Our Dream HOME” written on the front page.

For over a decade, he and his wife had been meticulously writing down every possible detail of the new home they would one day build for themselves. Pages and pages of details collected over the years. I was intrigued. “I have been planning and dreaming about this home for so long, Nechama, and now we are finally ready to build!” he triumphantly announced. “Find us land.”

I took the pad and opened to a random page, spotting a paragraph with the following words, “Golden Dry Cleaner Hook” in bold letters. My jaw dropped. I kept on reading: “A golden hook to be placed on the left side of the rear entrance of the house allocated for the cleaners to hang freshly laundered dry cleaning. This will resolve the problem of the hangers being placed on the door handle making it difficult to enter in or go out.” Genius! I thought.

While many of my buyers over the years have thought through the intricacies and minutiae that go into building a new home, others have come to me from the completely opposite

mindset: “We gotta get out of here and neither my husband nor I have any time to deal with anything! Please just find us a new home with five bedrooms to move into. And yes,

it has to have a guest bedroom on the first floor!”

As the new calendar year has begun and winter has arrived, my whole office and I are getting ready. The spring market is only moments away. Over the coming weeks I would like to discuss a topic that seems to be on everyone’s mind these days: construction. Whether it be brand new from the ground up, “gut” renovations, additions or small bathroom makeovers, construction projects seem to be all around us.

This topic is presently front and center and a tremendous driving force vis a vis the housing market, particularly here in Bergen County. It is a topic I will explore in the coming weeks. If there is a subject of particular interest that you might like me to address feel free to email me at [email protected] or call me at 201.826.8809.