By his second year of college, Andrew Forsyth knew he wanted to work in real estate. He attended the University of Connecticut Business School and majored in marketing and finance, but some of his closest friends were already focused on commercial real estate and they pulled him in that direction.
“I was involved in the university’s real estate club,” he remembers. “So I thought, ‘Okay, this is the right place for me.’ I’m really grateful that I found my way into this industry.”
Mr. Forsyth is now 15 years into his career as Vice President of a real estate and logistics company. He spends every day negotiating rental agreements with commercial tenants, and he remains a tenant in his private life – at least for the time being.
“That’s something I think we continue to evaluate,” he said. “As we’ve seen this incredible rise in home values, I’m perhaps a little annoyed that I didn’t try to make the move to buy sooner. It’s always easier to look back, and hindsight is 20/20.”
The question of whether to buy was right in front of him in May 2025 when he learned that his rental home in Hoboken had water damage that required new flooring to be installed. Instead of temporarily moving out – only to have to move all of his belongings back in – Mr Forsyth decided to look for a new place to live. He knew he wanted to stay in New Jersey because he fell in love with New Jersey during a job interview there years ago.
“I was at Harborside Financial Center,” he recalls, “and I remember standing in the lobby, looking out the window at One World Trade Center, which was still under construction at the time, and just having this aha moment: ‘Wow, I really have to get this interview done because this part of the world is really great.'”
$4,000 | WEEHAWKEN, NJ
Andrew Forsyth, 37
Profession: Commercial real estate leasing clerk
About free office space: Mr. Forsyth remains optimistic about the high volume of vacant office space in New York. He sees the market as resilient, in large part due to increased activity around conversions. “Converting office buildings into residential buildings is no longer a theory,” he said. “Dozens of projects are already approved, underway or recently completed – reinforcing my optimism that developers and policymakers will continue to focus on practical solutions to repurpose aging land and help address the region’s housing shortage.”
On the geography of friendships: Before the Covid-19 pandemic, most of Mr. Forsyth’s friends lived in Manhattan. That has now changed. “I think I’ve really started to build a friend group on the New Jersey side,” he said. “I spend less time in New York City on weekends than I did in my earlier years.”
For 14 years, Mr. Forsyth has lived in the same neighborhoods outside New York, where he lives a quieter life with the best views of the city. “I’ve kind of found my home here in northern New Jersey,” he said. “It’s one of those things where I look back and say, ‘Wow, I’m really glad I got out of here.'”
He knew he was keeping his house hunting local and had already checked out neighboring neighborhoods on his routine runs along the Hudson River, often taking different routes to see new buildings popping up. He soon focused on the Estuary Reserve, a new waterfront project in Weehawken.
It felt good on his first tour of the building. He liked the brightness and spaciousness of the 700-square-foot one-bedroom apartment he ended up renting, but it was the outdoor spaces that made the place feel good, not just the pool and grills, but also the paths along the river. Living near water, he said, makes him feel connected to his childhood in Rhode Island.
“The outdoor area is a big highlight for me,” he said. “I have a kind of hybrid work structure and occasionally I have the opportunity to work from home. It’s always nice to go for a walk outside and get some fresh air, take a few work calls and remind myself that we don’t have to sit inside all day.”
Mr. Forsyth moved in last August, but the peace he feels when he steps onto the reservation has not waned. “Sometimes I come home from work,” he said, “and after I’ve been in midtown Manhattan for a day and I walk into the building in Weehawken at the end of a trip, I exhale.”
His satisfaction with his rental property has changed Mr. Forsyth’s schedule and approach to homeownership. “The way I look at it today is that I’m much more focused on where I’m at in life,” he said. “I still want to own a property at some point if it makes sense, but I’m hoping that my first step into ownership might be more of a long-term step, as opposed to if I had bought something in the last few years it probably would have been more of an entry-level property. I’m hoping that maybe I can bypass some of those middle steps to get to a point where I can find that long-term goal.”
His career in real estate has strengthened Mr. Forsyth’s understanding of the cyclical nature of the industry. “If you look at what has happened over the last 10 or 15 years, it’s easy to assume that the only option is for values to continue to rise,” he said. “But it’s just not necessarily a guarantee. So I’ll continue to be patient – and that doesn’t mean I’ll just look at real estate as an investment. There are life situations that might make me more inclined to take that leap of faith.”
He noted that his girlfriend had recently moved in.
“Having space for a garden, an opportunity to raise a family,” he said. “Those are the things that are going to be more important than just the investment side of real estate.”