Looking to rent a home? Mayor Fried could be your new landlord. Listed with Montclair realtor Adriana O’Toole, Fried’s former home at 177 Union (you might recall it from the suspicious letter that turned out to be an Ebay package) is available for rent for $6,800 a month. Here’s the listing description:
Elegant and comfortable – marvelous floor plan with flow for entertaining – 6 fireplaces, library, music room, office, spiral staircase for ‘nanny suite’; very large master bedroom bath, closets,many original and distinctive details: hardwood floors, parquet floors, french doors, butler’s pantry, laundry on 2nd floor, built in cabinets, leased windows, back stairway; fireplaces in library, dining room and living room.
According to public records online, Fried purchased the Union Street home in 1998 for $675,000. It was last assessed in 2010 for $1,390,400. Fried has moved to new digs nearby on Myrtle Ave.
(you might recall it from the suspicious letter that turned out to be an Ebay package)
Oh, Liz, you are wonderful.
I don’t really want to stir up all the tax/class warfare stuff, but I have to say, seeing these pix of the Mayor’s mansion, it makes me think that Montclair really is turning into a three tiered town. There’s the bottom tier–the truly poor or lower middle class (because in America nobody is “lower class”), who are being forced out. There’s the middle class (which, nationally, would probably be considered upper middle class), who are being squeezed by taxes. And there’s the wealthy tier, who are not being squeezed, and who therefore don’t really care that taxes will double within ten years, because they can afford it–e.g., Mayor Fried.
This isn’t really fair, because I don’t know the state of the Mayor’s finances, and I’m not interested in knowing them. I don’t mean this to be a commentary on the Mayor’s personal life. It’s just a reaction to the pictures and all that’s gone on in town politics in the past decade or so.
I’m sure there are many variations and exceptions. I know there are, because I know people who don’t fit into this analysis–people who are wealthy and concerned about taxes, people who are not wealthy and who would rather live in a tiny house or apt to stay in the town they love, etc. It’s a gross generalization. But I fear it is accurate on the whole. Montclair is definitely changing demographically, and this dynamic may explain why.
On the other hand, perhaps the Mayor himself falls outside this pattern–for all I know he downsized because the taxes on that big house were too high.
So maybe I’m wrong. (It wouldn’t be the first time.) Maybe I’m oversimplifying, just as evolved oversimplifies the corruption of wildlife experts.
Phew, walleroo, that was a close one. You came awfully close to saying something which might upset someone.
Feel better?
What’s interesting to me is that at 6% for 30 years (100K down, $17,000 tax) his mortgage on the house should be around $4900 per month. So, at the very least, I’m reassured he’s a capitalist.
So, the Mayor is hoping to score $81,600 in rental income per year. zollow.com says the taxes on it are $35,024 per year. We don’t know if he is carrying a mortgage.
All I know is he thinks I’m not paying my fair share.
Why doesn’t Fried simply donate this home as a dorm for all those students from China he promised would be coming here to pump up the local economy?
And since he’s moved, can we also get a photo essay on his new digs?
Sorry, ROQ, this is how the good lord put me together. Can’t change it. I’ll leave you with the black-and-white paint set.
This isn’t really fair, because I don’t know the state of the Mayor’s finances
Mister Mayor volunteered to be unemployed for four years. That should tell you what you need to know about his finances.
Walleroo, was this the 1st time you’ve noticed that class differences are enourmous in Montclair? The class and racial divides were the 1st things I noticed when I got to Baristaville a few years ago.
So you agree with my analysis, nick?
Of course, bop, I noticed it when I moved here in the Late Cretaceous. If I had to do it now, I’m not sure I would have been able to afford it.
Well, I’ve said this before, but I’m just not sure why anyone thought the town’s finances would be managed well by a bike enthusiast, an out-of-work artist, a school doctor, a retired cop, and a professional gambler.
Sure, there’s a labor attorney on there, too, and whatever Cary Africk does (he lives in a big house and drives a super nice car, so I’m guessing he knows how to make money — no wonder the rest of them ignore him). But I don’t believe most of them have any idea what it’s like to live like a regular person who survives paycheck-to-paycheck.
This obtuseness is illustrated perfectly by Mister Mayor, who can take four years off of work, seemingly just so he can share with the local media his China and bike obsessions. What else does he do?
But, like I said, I’m not sure there’s anyone to blame here but Montclair voters. What’d they think they were going to get?
Can’t tell you how many “I bought my house for XYZ,” stories I’ve heard where the XYZ was less than half what we paid for our place in Bloomfield.
These were folks who bought 10 years ago. Salaries certainly didn’t double over that time frame.
Now I’m a proud owner of a 100 year old depreciating asset with ever increasing property taxes.
Home prices always go up–until they don’t.
Wait. Is this the same Mayor Fried who is always claiming to be committed to “affordable housing”?
If it were, shouldn’t he be offering this house for less than $6,800/mo. See, Mr. Mayor, the lower the rent the more affordable the housing is. The same is true for taxes, by they way.
This almost makes you question his fealty to the cause.
I’ll take that as a “yes.”
Another councilor, whom I shall mercifully leave nameless, emailed me that he felt my pain about taxes because his were $30K. I replied that that meant his house was assessed at over a million, and I was having trouble feeling his.
I agree that it is difficult for many (most? all?) of our council members to truly empathize with those who are struggling to pay their taxes. As liberal as they profess to be, they seem to have trouble understanding the struggles of the besieged and rapidly disappearing middle class.
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers comes to mind when thinking of Montclair’s liberal set.
Nick gets my vote for featured comment.
“Well, I’ve said this before, but I’m just not sure why anyone thought the town’s finances would be managed well by a bike enthusiast, an out-of-work artist, a school doctor, a retired cop, and a professional gambler.”
latebloomer – I’d like to play “Guess that Councilman”. My money’s on Nick Lewis.
The Mayor’s finances must be okay, if he is able to purchase a new home in Montclair, while holding a vacant property that even without a mortgage carries over $35,000/year in property taxes. Either that or he is just really bad at math.
If the way the town’s finances are run is any indicator, it could very well be the latter.
njgator- I will neither confirm nor deny
Good point- Mots people have to sell before they can afford to buy, especially with those taxes.
OK, who’s the professional gambler??
Murnick!
Wow, Fried had lots of room to ride his bike without ever leaving the house…The porch alone is big enough…Hope he rode with a life jacket in case he landed in the pool.
Hmm. “It was last assessed in 2010 for $1,390,400.”
Methinks the Mayor himself filed one of those pesky tax appeals. The last townwide assessment was surely earlier than that.
Trulia says it may be overassessed — taxes are 35K
http://www.trulia.com/homes/New_Jersey/Montclair/sold/878889-177-Union-St-Montclair-NJ-07042
Nick nails it! Funny and sadly true. Bebop scores with Radiacal Chic! Fried seems to have the Midas touch with real estate. The value seems low in ’98 and stratospheric in ’10. Also, call me a cynic but most people that have a greater than passing interest in affordable housing stand to make money from it in some fashion.
Lots of people are paying taxes with a 40 handle for less house than Fried.
Looking at the record , the assessed value has not changed since the last town-wide re-evaluation. So Mayor Fried has either not appealed his assessment or has failed in his appeals.
But now that he is looking to rent the house out, I believe that Mayor Fried has a moral obligation to appeal his assessment to try to lower the property taxes on the house. WIth lower taxes, he can afford to charge less in rent and do his part to provide more affordable housing for Montclair.
“When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Hey walter, I am generally weary of the Fried jokes, but that was pretty funny.
I am glad to provide levity to your day, but I am completely serious.
Am I serious about this one? I’m not sure, but here goes:
Is it unfair to ask how the renters of this house might contribute to Montclair’s diversity?
It’s a great house. I’m guessing he’s just renting until he gets his next paying job. Being on our town council is basically a full time volunteer job with health benefits.
As one of the great philosophers of our time once said: “everything I say is half kidding but TOTALLY SERIOUS.”
…Washington never got a chance to sleep in Montclair…called Cranetown back then…but the James Howe House (369 Claremont Avenue)is called the “Freed Slave House” and also the “Washington Wayside House” in our hyper local history books…The name “Washington Wayside House”was assigned because the house was standing right there on the Old Road (Claremont avenue) and a witness of the historic event of Washington and his troupes passing by while on their way to Morristown in 1775…
The Montclair Historical Society’s plans to move this house to behind their Crane House Museum and re interpret it as a Slave House were blocked, by having the site designated as a local landmark. (finally) It would now take many many layers of due diligence and bureaucracy to ever modify this historical site…probably one of our most significant local history sites….
“Being on our town council is basically a full time volunteer job with health benefits.”
Nonsense. Other councilors own businesses, hold day jobs…
Do you suppose that Montclair’s recent decision to axe its code enforcement office was related to Mayor Fried’s anticipating becoming a landlord? It would be so much easier and more profitable for him if his tenants will have little recourse if he fails to keep the place up.
You might find an ABC married into one of the tribes of Israel. That’d be diverse…not.
Perhaps they do, ROQ, but they don’t get nearly as much done.
Being on our town council is basically a full time volunteer job with health benefits
The jobs are part-time, by design. The town manager runs the show, not the mayor. Everything the councilors get done can be done at their council meetings, or their committee meetings, most of which are at night.
Anything else they do is purely because of their own egos.
I’ll add here that some town employees have said a few members of the current town council regularly overstep their bounds. According to the town’s form of government, town councilors communicate only with the town manager, who runs the town. But Mister Mayor and his cohorts think nothing of shooting emails to this person or that asking them to perform favors, assist at events, etc. Fried, while touting that his trips to China cost no tax dollars, had the station manager of Channel 34 make videos that he could show to Chinese officials over there. And the deputy mayor thinks nothing of plopping her baby (now babies, I imagine) in municipal offices so employees can babysit them while she does her council business. Renee Baskerville even whines to employees that she doesn’t get good lighting for council meetings. Harambee!
Joe Hartnett didn’t like this at all, but they didn’t like him, so that didn’t matter. And they hired Marc Dashield, so I imagine he doesn’t have much sway with them.
Anyway, when you hear Fried or the others complain about how much work they put in, remind them that most of that extra work is voluntary, unnecessary, and probably more harmful than helpful.
again I find myself agreeing with nickcharles.
I looked at this story just to see what was up in my old home town. And I can see its the same only EVEN MORE expensive.
We moved away from Upper Montclair back in 1998- back then we couldn’t afford the typical $400,000 house which would need a new powder room downstairs, roof, hot water and had a crummy detached one car garage. Taxes were trypically $9000/ year.
We found 2900sq ft in lovely Cary, NC for a mere $229,000 (with a tax rate of 1.19% = $2600/year mind you). You wouldn’t beleive what $400,000 would still buy you down here today (usually at least 4000 sq ft)
Come on down and find a lifestyle you can quit complaining about
I looked at this story just to see what was up in my old home town. And I can see its the same only EVEN MORE expensive.
We moved away from Upper Montclair back in 1998- back then we couldn’t afford the typical $400,000 house which would need a new powder room downstairs, roof, hot water and had a crummy detached one car garage. Taxes were typically $9000/ year.
We found 2900sq ft in lovely Cary, NC for a mere $229,000 (with a tax rate of 1.19% = $2600/year mind you). You wouldn’t beleive what $400,000 would still buy you down here today (usually at least 4000 sq ft)
Come on down and find a lifestyle you can quit complaining about
i agree with Nick on this one too. I’m glad you have a great life in NC, Lindsey. My husband and I wouldn’t be able to work there so it’s not an option for everyone.
i agree with Nick on this one too.
Sounds like a lot of bellyaching to me. But I suppose that’s what we do here.
Come on down and find a lifestyle you can quit complaining about
Funny, Lindsey, this makes my day. It is indeed expensive in this part of the country. Sometimes I wonder about the whole experience, frankly.
We lost touch with good friends who left Mtc for NC in the late 1990s. I wonder if that’s you? Either way, I’m glad to hear that you’re happy, or at least thriving.