(Photo: Jack Louth)

NO. 2: THE POTENTIAL CASH-OUTS
Kristin Carbone, 35, and Michael St. John, 37, are Broadway actors; she’s understudying the title role in Mary Poppins, and he’s currently at work on a new musical for the New York Theatre Festival. They like the apartment they bought in Inwood seven years ago but are wondering, with a baby on the way, whether now is the time to cash out.

“When we bought our two-bedroom, not many people knew about Inwood. We felt like we were getting a great deal in an up-and-coming neighborhood, and today it’s almost quadrupled in value. Now, with me being pregnant and realizing that eventually we’re going to want more space, and knowing prices historically in New Jersey have been fairly high but right now they’re depressed a bit—it’s sort of forced us to look at where we are financially and what we’re going to need in the next couple of years. Dreaming about a child and preparing for one are two different things! You start thinking, Okay, where’s the desk gonna go, where’s the elliptical machine gonna go? It would be a challenge for us to stay in the city for much more than toddlerhood. You realize it’s time to start looking elsewhere, and the market might be in our favor, so let’s jump.

“For our asking price, which will probably be about $530,000, we can expect to easily afford a three-bedroom house with a decent-size yard near a commuter-rail line. We debated whether we could stay here another couple of years, but we don’t know that in a couple of years we’ll be able to buy the same size house for what our apartment is worth. We don’t think our apartment will go up much—we think we were at the top of the market about a year ago. And the Jersey market may go up a lot.”