On Owning a Home in New York City

As of this week, my wife and I have lived in our home for four years. How we got here was easy: we simply lived in some of the cheapest and worst apartments Brooklyn had to offer for thirteen years, took one vacation in ten years that didn't involve seeing family or friends, worked around the clock at often thankless jobs, saved as much money as possible and skipped nearly every luxury item, saw four of my closest family members die within three years of each other, came into a modest amount of money, grew said money using the skills I gained from one of said thankless jobs, watched the market crater during a worldwide pandemic, and shopped around at the only time in our lifetime when prices and rates would be low enough for us to purchase a house. In other words, an easy and pain-free process that is repeatable by anyone.

Buying a home was always our plan since we first started dating in 2011. We always wanted more room than we had in our horrible, under-heated apartments filled with twice as much stuff as anyone would rightfully store. We aspired to not continue paying the absolute worst landlords (save for the last one we had) for something we did not own, give our cat enough space to roam free in, and host parties where people could spread out, not stay cramped. (Even with ~3,200 square feet at our disposal, people still congregate in one of two places whenever we throw parties. Sometimes three if they're watching a sporting event.)

Yet we always expected we'd have to either move out of the city and pay high property taxes, into a co-op and pay high fees, or into a shack in some far-off that might have a train and certainly would have the majority of its residents speaking Russian (which, as a left-leaning person of Russian descent, would be doubleplusungood). In the end, we found something spacious, in good shape, and in Brooklyn within close proximity to everything and everyone we enjoy.

The Search

We first started seriously looking at homes at the very end of 2019. Thanks to the minor setback of a major worldwide health emergency shortly thereafter, we mostly spent a year-plus simply perusing Zillow and StreetEasy, seeing what was in our price range in Westchester (which I quickly disqualified, after having suffered there for 17 years of my youth), New Jersey (which my wife disqualified, after having suffered the Newark airport a couple of times), and around the city.

After we were both vaccinated in early 2021, we started looking at houses in and within a few miles of our home turf — Sunset Park, often wrongly called Greenwood Heights or South Slope. The first house was a 1700 square foot blue home on an angle and across the street from an electrical substation that routinely caught fire during a light drizzle. The next few houses were in Windsor Terrace, around the corner from a bar that had a Let's Go Brandon flag, which the real estate agent (a woman of color) waived off and said "Oh, that's just part of their culture and heritage. They don't mean anything by that." We also looked at a brownstone in Sunset Park proper (in the 40s) which would've been perfect if not for the beam holding up the house needing immediate replacement, lest we minded the house sinking in on itself.

Following about fifty more showings, we found the house we live in today and immediately bit for the asking cost. How much did we pay for it, you ask? None of your goddamn business is my usual answer, as is "if you were astute enough and a monster of a person, you could use Google."

Buying the home was the realization of a decade-long dream. It took hard work, incredibly careful budgeting, tragedy, sacrificing wants and a few needs, and a singular goal that my wife and I did everything and anything to build towards. So when someone from our old neighborhood told me "you were always going to get a home no matter what, because it was in your star chart," I politely told her to go fuck herself.

Actually Owning a Home

Before moving in, we had a contractor — one who we did not dare check against other potential contractors — come in make some changes to the house. This included, but was not limited to, turning one of the smaller bedrooms into a bathroom, fixing the bottom floor bathroom, staining the bare floor of the attic, turning the unfinished attic space into a walk-in closet, and adding HVAC mini-splits in nearly every room. He also caused a giant leak in our kitchen, tore a hole in its ceiling, and charged us for the fix, so the chances of using his services next time are slim.

There haven't been many major fixes we've had to make in the last four years. Sure, the refrigerator broke after boiling everything in the freezer, and the microwave did regularly kill power to all things in the back half of the house, but those were minor fixes. We're (over)due for a new roof this year — something we've budgeted for over the last four years — and there's visible wiring on the opposite side of the doorbell. That said, I'm someone who expects the absolute worst to happen at all times, all day and every day; when 99% of those things don't happen within the first four years of homeownership, I call that a win.

After being bilked by a plumber who implored I install an unnecessary device on my boiler and then unknowingly shorten the boiler's lifespan so I could get him to install a new one, I decided to start taking some repair projects on as my own, which meant learning how to fix things. I replaced the old, rusty U-trap under our kitchen sink for the low price of $2 piping and a tetanus shot after I cut myself on the remnants. I repainted the second floor bathroom cabinet after a few years of mildew got trapped in it and messed up the paint. I even installed water filters under a few sinks because this is a 120+ year old house and we still have a lead water main.

Maintaining the place hasn't been terribly hard overall. Expensive to heat and cool at times, sure, and the roof thing is freaking me out. (As is the insignificant leak at the bottom of the dishwasher, which I may attempt to repair myself.) Yet we are quite fortunate that the house is in such good shape, and we've done our share in making sure it stays that way.

Why Not an Apartment?

Buying an apartment or condo comes with a hefty maintenance fee. That fee more or less ensures that someone else gets the tetanus shot when replacing the u-trap under your sink, among other things.

It also means living next to, below, or on top of someone. As a person with a penchant for being unaware of my own volume — voice and guitar amplifier alike — I wanted a detached house to avoid dealing with such things. My wife also sings and always wanted to belt in her own home (something she did as recent as 45 minutes ago), yet doing such a thing would get you in front of a condo board or a noise complaint rather quickly.

After seeing a string of crappy listings, we did consider purchasing an apartment for a total of three hours. This was cut short after visiting the lavish duplex apartment on the Brooklyn Waterfront of an acquaintance, who had as much space as we do now but with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. Though the location was out-of-this-world (his next-door neighbor was a world-famous sculptor), he had to deal with other neighbors throwing things on his porch, playing music at high volume at all hours of the night, and generally being dicks. For what I'm pretty sure cost him $20 million, I couldn't fathom having to deal with that or much worse over the course of a thirty-year mortgage.

Future Plans

I'd like to stay in this house for the next 26+ years or longer. Though our lot is zoned by the city for 15,000 square feet — meaning we could knock this place down and put up an apartment building — I actually really love this house. The century-plus of its existence gave it interesting peculiarities, like half of it being bolted on in the '40s, a weird basement that isn't at all haunted, and a mysterious fire that took place in the '80s on the third floor of unknown origin. It's the first place I've lived since 1997 that actually feels like home. All that stuff we filled our previous apartments with was enough to fill a minimalist house of this size (which I've since overstuffed with a thousand-plus more books). I feel comfortable, not on top of anyone I don't know (I could always hear our neighbors, especially in our last apartment), and on a first-name basis with the characters of the neighborhood. (We also have a front and back yard in New York City, and plans for them. Eventually.)

I also think a house is a house, not an investment. Call me Marx, but I feel that buying a home for the express purpose of selling it at a later date for at least twice its value is a really stupid concept that actually perpetuates homelessness, among other horrible things. I bought this place not to make a profit, but to put mountains of books, give loved ones a place to stay (or live), and fall asleep without the creep of rent being paid to a landlord at the end of the day. Not because it's part of a portfolio.

That's not to say we absolutely will stay here forever. If we could sell the house to buy a house closer to the park (in the historic Prospect Park South neighborhood, for instance), it's something we would consider, but not a must. For now, I will continue to fill this place with more books, drag my heels on replacing the roof, consider more things to add to Apple Homekit, and generally relax after a long day, kicking off my shoes in the most inconvenient part of the hallway as I run up the banister, into the den (separate from the living room), and turn on Frasier as I fall asleep on the couch.