I'm in the same boat essentially - all my girl friends live in different states and I didn't move to NJ until after high school. I've been meaning to try putting myself out there, but I also feel like I've forgotten how to make friends in adulthood 🤣. My mom and stepdad live in Denville, Morristown is pretty busy on the weekends! My stepsister joined an improv group just for fun and to help with social anxiety. Something I am considering!

ETA: I have a friend out in Arizona who got a dog and started going to dog parks - she has made tons of friends that way! My personal experience up here is that people are very friendly and always willing to strike up conversation. Especially if you are a regular and go at the same times of the day/week. My first (both rescues) was terminally ill, so we weren't able to go often. My second absolutely hated strangers so it was a danger to other humans to take her. Maybe whenever I'm ready again I'll give it another go.

Yes they really are!! We passed on the 2 bedroom because the HOA was sooo high, like $719. We saw another today that is asking $218 with no other offers yet... might try $210 just to see what they counter with, but we may end up insulting them with that since it's only been on the market for a day. It's so frustrating when the places are super competitive 😭 wishing you the best of luck as well!🙏🙏

Gonna follow this post because I'm a first time home buyer as well, but I'm getting a condo in the $250 or less range. My mom is helping me with 70k for the down payment while I'm in nursing school (she would be giving me the same amount of money or more for 3 years rent anyway, but if I rent she will never get that $ back), with the stipulation I will pay her back when I sell and she gets the tax writeoff. I've seen about 30 places so far, but half are extremely nice and half are not very desirable. We won all the offers we put in for the places that needed some work or updating but we've had to pull them all due to things like 1.) Lead paint so couldn't do the updates we wanted 2.) one had downright crazy HOA rules and 3.) another had an underground oil tank and the sewer line was leaking.

My mom wants to go with one of the really really nice ones (brand new renovated gorgeous units), but isn't willing to bid high enough based on whatever asking is. Hard to explain but for example she will make an offer for $235 on a place asking $225, or $250 on a place asking $240. But then if my realtor says a place will go for X amount over, she won't do it and we lose the place. One asked for $215, my realtor pretty much said we're wasting our time if we didn't offer at LEAST $235... but she went with 225. One place was a newly renovated 1250 sqft 2bed/2bath...they were asking $219, but offered to cancel their open house if we would do $225 because they just closed on their new home and were desperate to sell. She said no, we wouldn't go over $222, they can go ahead and have the open house and shes willing to gamble. It seems hard for her to realize that people are asking low to get people in and start wars, so we can't focus too much on asking price. If it was up to me I'd take the advice of the realtor, but it's not. Maybe I'll make my own post lol but if anyone giving OP advice has any for me as well, I would love to hear it!!