Two N.Y.U. seniors and a recent graduate joined forces to look for a Brooklyn home that wasn’t ‘too tiny, too dingy or too sketchy.’ Here’s what they found.
Two N.Y.U. seniors and a recent graduate joined forces to look for a Brooklyn home that wasn’t ‘too tiny, too dingy or too sketchy.’ Here’s what they found.
The New York Times
Real Estate|Three Students, $3,000 and a Dream: An Affordable Brooklyn Apartment. Where Did They Wind Up?
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Real Estate|The Hunt
Three Students, $3,000 and a Dream: An Affordable Brooklyn Apartment. Where Did They Wind Up?
ByJOYCE COHENNOV. 21, 2019
Two N.Y.U. seniors and a recent graduate joined forces to look for a Brooklyn home that wasn’t ‘too tiny, too dingy or too sketchy.’ Here’s what they found.Related Article
Last spring, not knowing where or when she would find a job after graduating from the film and television program at New York University, Ana Fangayen gave up her room in a shared East Village apartment. She considered returning home to South Jersey for the summer.
But soon after, she was offered a job (which she accepted over the phone during N.Y.U.’s commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium). So she stayed in the city, sleeping on an air mattress in a loft above a friend’s kitchen in Union Square.
As she hunted for a more permanent place, “there were nights where I cried,” she said, as every possibility seemed “too tiny, too dingy or too sketchy.”
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Through a colleague, she landed a summer sublet in a Bedford-Stuyvesant duplex, joining four others. By now, Ms. Fangayen, 22, a video editor for PureWow, had become familiar with Brooklyn. Her goal was to pay $1,000 a month or less for a new place. She and a college friend, Brandon Burnett, 21, an N.Y.U. senior who was studying in Italy for the summer, decided to room together.
To expand their options, they added a third roommate — another N.Y.U. senior, Paige Dillon, 21, who answered the call on Facebook.
The mission became finding a three-bedroom for up to $3,000. They all wanted some sunlight and big-enough bedrooms. And the bathroom had to be clean, with storage capacity.
Ms. Fangayen screened for no-fee buildings, opting not to work with an agent after a friend told her how high the fee could be. In most three-bedroom apartments, she found one bedroom more desirable than the others — bigger, brighter or equipped with a better closet.
“It was hard to decide who gets what room and was it fair for all of us to pay the same amount if one person was getting something better out of their room,” she said.
She would leave work at 5 p.m. to tour apartments, sometimes forgetting to take pictures for the others or check for deal-breakers. If she liked a place, she would tell Ms. Dillon, who squeezed in visits around her summer job.
“I just wanted to get it over with,” Ms. Fangayen said. “It was exhausting, having to communicate with all of us and sending pictures of places.”
Among their three-bedroom choices:
No. 1
Williamsburg With Windows
This apartment with exposed brick was in a four-family house, two blocks east of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — “a pretty ideal location,” Ms. Fangayen said. “All the rooms had windows. The kitchen even had a window.”
The rent was $2,999, and “$3,000 or less seemed to be rare in Williamsburg,” she said.
No. 2
Bed-Stuy Walk-up With Terrace
This new building had laundry on the premises. The unit was on the fourth floor, and a sliding door in the living room opened to a small terrace. One bedroom had its own bathroom.
“The walk-up itself wasn’t that bad,” Ms. Fangayen said. “All the rooms got a good amount of sunlight.”
The rent was $2,895.
No. 3
Bed-Stuy With Roof Deck
This unit on the second floor of a new building had a bathroom with a giant mirror “from corner to corner, all the way up to the ceiling,” Ms. Fangayen said. “It made the bathroom look bigger, even though it’s a normal size.”
Sliding doors opened to a small balcony, and there was a common roof deck.
The rent was $3,000.
Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:
Which Would You Choose?
Williamsburg With Windows
Bed-Stuy Walk-up With Terrace
Bed-Stuy With Roof Deck
Which Did They Choose?
Williamsburg With Windows
Bed-Stuy Walk-up With Terrace
Bed-Stuy With Roof Deck
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