As part of our return trip we wanted, and needed, to swing by the old neighborhood for a visit and to pick up some stuff we still had hanging in the closet at our former neighbors house. It felt weird, almost uncomfortable, being within a few hundred feet where we once called home. We don't know why, but we both couldn't wait to get out of there.
I think part of it, at least for me, is the guilt I still have about selling it. In some deep corner of my brain I feel like I committed a crime, and got away with it. Now she's a beauty of an old house, but comes with a lot of needs, and required maintenance just to keep her status quo. I conveyed everything I could to the buyers, who seemed happy the last time we spoke to them, but, still, we avoided them, as to not want to hear, or be accused, of hiding or not relaying something they found out when they got in.
When we were planning on selling I came up with a date of May 22nd for it to be put on the market. I knew the house showed its best during May and spring is always a good time to sell a house. When we had our estate sale and planted our "Coming Soon" signs in the front yard
the Zestimate at that time put the homes value at over 1 million dollars. Now Zestimate isn't science, but it is something sellers and buyers use when they surf Zillow. So for us the timing was perfect and we needed to strike when the iron was hot, and we did.
We had sat down with a team of realtors who came up with a marketing plan which included listings, and staging, photos and drone shots, and New York Times listings. That would all happen after we had cleaned the place out and had it show ready. I told them that wasn't going to work. This house needed to go-live on May 22nd and, like I said, it would be sold in less then three weeks. They weren't buying it, so we did it on our own, and had an offer on it a week before May 22nd, and we closed in July.
And we're lucky, well blessed, that it happened when it did, exactly the way it did. If it didn't go in May it would still be sitting for sale. Out neighbor was selling at the same time we were. We had a plan to list them at the same time thinking it would stir up a buzz and help both of us sell quickly. We got out of the gate quicker, sold it ourselves, while she went with the realtors, and their plan.
Well last week her home, which is stunning, was featured in The New York Times, above. And the real estate market, for now, has seemed to have softened up a bit. Interest rates, time of year, New Jersey real estate taxes, could all be contributing factors. But, for us, somehow, we got it ready and sold just at the perfect time.
So while we sat having lunch in my former neighbors house I kept looking over to see the old house, and maybe what they had done with it. I went online and looked up the Zestimate and it's
now down to $828,000, just about around what the buyers paid for it. You know if that number was it when they bought I don't know if they would have paid even money for it. I guess timing is everything in real estate.
And of course I couldn't pass by the chance to stop and check out the river. The Delaware River. What seven years I had here. I say seven because we lived in Titusville for 8, but I didn't really fish it this spring.
That pull off above will not be there one day but I pulled into there countless times to scout, check conditions, relax, and even fish. Just about every morning I made the commute to Essex County College in Newark I would stop and look at the water and see what colors the lettering on the "Trenton Makes The World Takes" bridge were.
I had so many good times fishing that river and met good people while doing so. And the striped bass. I would have never dreamed that in the heart of New Jersey's capital city I would come to call this my home and favorite water to fly fish for striped bass. One thing that moving to the Lowcountry has reaffirmed to me is that I miss fishing big and moving water.
Over the years I was always hesitant to post trip logs with pictures as to not blow up a spot, or even that the fishing was good. It's a place that you really can't just go to and be productive. You have to put in your time, learn, and be dialed into. And by the time we moved I can say I had it down pretty good. So if you were to ask me if I'd rather have a day to fish the spring on the Delaware, when the bass are on the herring, or a fall day, when the bass are on the peanuts on the beach, I'd would pick the former.
And since this post is all about Mercer County I figured I'd share some Trenton news. It wasn't my scene, but was a huge Jersey music scene venue. It was called City Gardens. It was a
nondescript rectangular masonry building that was a mix between a club and concert hall. It was one of the most popular places for the hard rock, punk, and alternative music fans to go to from
the 1970's through the 1990's. I never knew of it until I saw and article that a car had driven through the vacant structure a few years back. It was a place that I drove past on Calhoun Street on my way to work at Capital Health.
There was a push to save the place but it was deemed uninhabitable and ordered to be torn down. Well, yesterday on October 6 , 2026, it met the proverbial wrecking ball. I saw on-line that people drove to be there when it went down and to grab a brick or something to remember the place by.
Knowing the place was historic I took Erin there on December 27th, 2022, to take a tour and some pictures. By then the place was wide open and the vagrants and scrappers had moved in and called the place home, or work.
The place was big, and I can imagine only if it's walls could talk. There was nothing we could find that had City Gardens on it so we just settled for some pictures before leaving.
And while we were down south last week the north got beat up pretty good with the weather. Now we're up here, and it looks like home may get one of those fall tropical storms, or at worst, a hurricane.
Right now it's churning it's way north from Mexico. If the path doesn't hit you the rain just might and it looks like the southeastern part of the country is going to get hammered. 4-8 inches of rain is a lot of water and the higher to lower elevation areas don't do well with monsoons.
But for now we're back in Cape May, freezing our asses off, but enjoying the crisp fall weather. It's empty down here as most people have stopped vacationing or returned to their primary residences. Closing up shop here and heading south back can't come soon enough. I've got used to shorts and t-shirts in the short time we've been down south. I'll trade in a light jacket if it gets down to 50 degrees in South Carolina over $6.00 a gallon home heating oil prices any day of the week.
And that brings me back to the old house, and that old oil burner. The new owners have no idea how hungry that thing gets, and the frequency and costs that comes with visits from Stockton Oil. We kept our thermostat at 60 degrees, and it took everything she had to hit that mark. I guess that's where the guilt comes in. You don't know until you know.....and they're gonna know soon enough.