Hanover Township, N.J.: ‘A Nice, Family-Oriented Place’

Tired of the scorching weather and the constant threat of wildfires, Andrew and Carolyn Trexler decided early this year that it was time to abandon their five-year experiment of living in Northern California. So they left to return to their home turf of North Jersey. The only problem was securing a house in a highly competitive market.

After months of looking online and seeing houses come on and go from the market in days, the Trexlers and their two children, 11 and 14, took a weekend trip back East in early May. They looked at 10 houses and put in offers — well above the asking prices — on four. Each time, they were outbid.

“It’s such an emotional roller coaster, wondering how much over asking you’re going to have to bid, only to be told you’re No. 2,” said Mr. Trexler, 46, a cardiac nurse who had a new job at St. Clare’s Denville Hospital, in Denville, N.J., with a June start date. “We were at the point where we thought we’d just rent for a year and see if the inventory would go up or interest rates would go down. We were desperate.”

Then they got word that the top offer on a house they’d bid on in Hanover Township had fallen through, and that their second-place offer — $60,000 over the $610,000 asking price — was now sufficient. In mid-June, they closed on the four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath split-level on 1.2 acres, and a few days later they were signing up for Hanover’s Bee Meadow Pool, library cards and new driver’s licenses. Their heads are still spinning.

“Climactically and culturally, I just didn’t see us putting down permanent roots in California,” said Mr. Trexler, who grew up in nearby Summit, N.J. (Ms. Trexler, 46, grew up in East Hanover.) “It’s been so easy to reassimilate into what we had before. Our friends from before have been so welcoming.”