Elle Bee

It was August 2012, a full nine months after I made my offer on Ashland Place, and I was feeling like I was at the end of a very long gestation.

Having been rejected by my credit union for a mortgage, I turned with some trepidation to the Internet to look for a mortgage broker.

I had received numerous unsolicited mortgage offers via e-mail over the years, but arriving along with offers for weight loss supplements, discounted luxury watches and sex life enhancements, the whole industry seemed a little seedy to me. 

The only problem with finding an apartment that I liked and could afford was that I found it with the wrong agent.

I had no real issues with “Karen” other than a vague lack of confidence, but somehow it felt wrong that one flighty agent could find me the right place within three hours when one diligent agent couldn’t find one in eight months.

After eight months and 49 apartments, I was increasingly worried that my broker, Sidney, would throw in the towel—he had shown me numerous apartments that looked alike and yet, none that fit the bill.

He never intimated it, but I’m sure he thought, “What do you think you’ll get for $300k?” I was beginning to wonder the same.

Search fatigue set in, and so just after Halloween last year, I decided I needed a break from looking.  

Between March and late fall of last year, most of my Sundays were consumed by open houses in Upper Manhattan, a parade of one-bedrooms with an assortment of ailments ranging from lack of space to lack of light.

Week 4 of the apartment search. Sidney, the first realtor I contacted about four weeks ago, offered to show me around Inwood, a neighborhood in the furthest northern reaches of Manhattan, popular with musicians and actors.

Knowing that I was a freelance writer, he thought co-op boards there were more friendly towards “creative types” such as myself. And, having lived there for eight years, he could recommend the neighborhood first hand.