What attracted you to where you live now?

 

As a child, we used to visit my Grandfather, on my father's side, who lived in Lancaster Pennsylvania. I used to love to explore in the woods behind his house.

When my wife and I got married, we spent our honeymoon at Ceasers Paradise Stream, in the Poconos. Then, 5 years later, we went back to Paradise Stream, to the same room, for our 5th anniversary. We did alot of sightseeing, the second time, and we found that we loved the area. It was close enough to NY to commute, yet it was the country. In the Bronx, we were renting an apartment, in Throggsneck, on the water. We were paying $650.00 per month for a three and one half room apartment. While still looking into the Poconos, we found that we could rent a house for just about the same amount.

We began calling different real estate companies in the area and found that we could buy a house for under $100,000.00 as compared to a house in the Bronx that were ranging from $150,000.00 and up! My wife and I had looked at a house, in Throggsneck. The house was called a "handyman special" and was priced at $160,000.00. A better name for the house would have been "condemned"! After looking at several other houses in the Bronx, we decided to start looking in the Poconos.

Since we didn't know anybody else who had moved to Pennsylvania who could tell us their experiences, we decided instead of just jumping in and buying a house, we would rent for a year or two, just to make sure that we weren't making a mistake and do some homework as to where we wanted to actually buy. We rented our first house, in the Poconos. It was a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house on 1/4 acre land, for only $600.00 per month. It was in a gated community, with pools, lakes, boating,etc..... The house was "Lake View", accross the street from the lake. We could have bought that house for $70,000.00. The house, though, ended up having water problems. The second house, which we also rented, was in the same community. This was also a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house, with a screened in porch, for $625.00 per month. The one thing that I learned, while renting in the community, was that I didn't like being in the community. There were too many ridiculous rules, such as what color you could paint your house, how many cars you could have registered to your property, having to call in all of your guests and how long they would be staying, etc...... My wife and I decided that we like Pa and didn't want to move back to NY, so we started looking at homes outside of communities. We now own a 5 bedroom house, with 3 full baths, formal living room, family room, dining room, screened in upper deck, an open lower deck, a pool, on 5 acres! We were able to get all of this for less than the "Handyman Special" back in the Bronx! We are still only 2 to 3 hours out of NY.