My story of becoming a homeowner in Brooklyn. Part 2
Apr 21, 2014
So after months and months of internet browsing and fantasizing, my husband and I had decided to “get serious”. We didn’t really know the first step or even what we were doing at all so the first thing I did was talk to Victoria at the office. She told me that first and foremost we needed to get a pre-approval for a loan. We did and were approved for $450,000, which was what we expected. So with this and our down payment we could afford a place for $550,000. There were a couple of problems with this. We are a family a four living in a 650 square foot apartment and realized that we needed more room. The apartments we were seeing in our neighborhood (Carroll Gardens, Columbia Waterfront, Cobble Hill) in our budget were about the same size as our apartment now. We were also concerned that getting the full loan of $450,000 would strain our budget and we’d have to eat Kraft mac and cheese every night and never travel again to be able to afford it. But we carried on looking. We looked a little further out in Greenwood Heights and I found a place way over our budget ($649,000!) and I fantasized some more. It had a terrace about as big as our apartment now! Then a miracle happened. My husband’s parents offered to help with the down payment, which was something we were both surprised by and overwhelmingly grateful for. Our budget went up to $650,000 overnight yet the neighborhood we were looking in was still out of reach so we set our sights further out and decided to explore other neighborhoods. First on our list, Greenwood Heights. We went to see the place with the giant terrace. We were the only ones at the open house and we knew this was a bad sign. It had three bedrooms but all were extremely tiny. The living area was also very tiny. We’d have to be creative to fit a couch area and dining area in the same space. Still I wanted it! In my mind it was all about the terrace. And it was so much bigger than our apartment now. My husband talked me down. Haha. I think I had wanted an apartment so badly that my perspective had flown out the window. This was the first place we looked at. We decided to keep looking.