Becoming a homeowner in Brooklyn. Part 3
Apr 28, 2014
Our First Offer.
We went to a handful of open houses before we found a place that we wanted to make an offer on. We didn’t go to an open house to “just look” at this point. Every time we went out it was because we were interested after looking at the place online. The first few open houses always had a few surprises. No closets, smaller than the pictures made it seem, etc. Then we found a place in Windsor Terrace, which was an area we were just beginning to explore. The location was amazing, right on Prospect Park SW. Asking was $619,000. It was about 850 square feet and the one big con was that the second bedroom was an upstairs loft and not an actual closed off bedroom. But it was really big and didn’t have short ceilings like you’d imagine in a loft bedroom. The pros were the location and it had 2 bathrooms. While at the open house we experienced our first taste of the upcoming bidding war. It was packed and the energy was intense. I knew several people would be bidding so, though I had doubts about the loft bedroom aspect, we got wrapped up in the whole thing and offered asking price. A couple of days later we were informed that a few others also offered asking. Two were in a better spot than us as well with 50% down. We knew we didn’t have much of a shot but when asked for a “best and final” we went up to $626,000. We were outbid. Phew. As much as I loved the location. I am so glad we didn’t get that place. Thinking back on it, with all the expenses we’d incur (heating and cooling a larger space, maintenance, property taxes, insurance, and any handy work that needs to get done) we’d be really scraping by. We didn’t want to live like that and it took me losing that apartment and taking a step back to realize that we needed to adjust our budget and look for something with a lower price tag.