Finding the Right Apartment Is Only Half the Battle
Most first-time buyers assume the hard part of buying real estate in Brooklyn is identifying the right apartment to purchase. It is not. The right apartment will show up at some point, sometimes in the first week of looking and sometimes in the sixth month. Whenever it does appear, the hard part is what you do immediately after seeing it.
I have been helping people buy in Brooklyn for more than fifteen years, and the pattern rarely changes. I tell a first-time buyer a typical timeline to purchase real estate, including how quickly good properties tend to move in Brooklyn. They nod, they understand, and they even seem to mean it. Then the process begins. Eventually, the right place comes on the market, but instead of acting decisively, they hesitate. Or they decide to open low and negotiate up from there. Meanwhile, someone else signs the contract. It usually takes losing one or two properties before the lesson sticks.
The Apartment Will Not Wait
In Brownstone Brooklyn, a well-priced property in good condition (or any condition) draws a crowd at the first open house, and the listing agent is often asking for best and final offers by the middle of the next week. A lowball opening offer is not a negotiating tactic in that setting. It takes you out of the running while the buyers who came in serious compete with each other.
The buyers I see win are not always the ones with the most money. They are the ones who understand the current market, know their financial limits, and are prepared to submit a strong offer the same day rather than taking a week to talk themselves into it. I have had many clients who saw the right place, made an offer within 24 hours, and got it. Getting there does not require any special talents, only preparation, a realistic view of the market, and the willingness to go after it.
Ready Means Pre-Approved
Before you look at anything seriously, you should know some key numbers:
What you can afford in total
How much of that you will pay in cash
How much you will finance
What you can afford to pay monthly
If you are financing, get a lender pre-approval based on a review of your financial documents, not just a preliminary estimate of what you might qualify to borrow. A strong pre-approval letter tells a seller that your financing has already been evaluated, and in a competitive situation, that credibility matters.
You can begin seeing properties without a pre-approval, but if you fall in love with something and want to pursue it, you may lose out to more prepared buyers while you scramble to get your pre-approval letter. Early tours are a useful warm-up, a way to learn what your budget actually buys and which neighborhoods feel right, but when you are mentally ready to really purchase something, get your financials in order before you head out to see new listings.
You do not need a real estate attorney to start looking. In New York City, you can engage a real estate attorney with a single phone call once you have an accepted offer, and I have several attorneys I trust to recommend at every budget.
Condo First
When a first-time buyer asks whether to buy a condo or a co-op, my answer starts in the same place every time: buy a condo if you can afford it.
A condo is real property. You own your unit outright, the way you would own a house. You own your apartment as real property, much as you would own a house. You generally have more freedom to rent it out, sell it, and renovate than you would in a co-op, although every building has its own rules and restrictions. A co-op is much different. You are buying shares in a corporation that owns the building, and a board approves who moves in, whether you can sublet, and what you can renovate. Condos generally cost a bit more for that flexibility, and in my view it is money well spent.
Co-ops have their loyalists, and I understand why. There is a sense of community in a well-run co-op, a board that vets its neighbors, and a classic New York way of owning that some buyers truly prefer. If that is what you want, or if the budget points there, a co-op can be a sound way to own in Brooklyn, as long as you go in understanding the board process and the building’s finances. But if the condo premium is within reach, that is where I usually start.
Follow the Housing Stock
Brooklyn is too big for a single answer to where you should buy. The right neighborhood depends on the kind of property you want, your commute, what type of neighborhood attracts you, and what your budget covers. What I can tell you is where the housing stock tends to match what first-time buyers are looking for, and where it often does not.
Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy
Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy have some of the most intact brownstone blocks in the borough, and a good number of those buildings have been converted into condos over the years. Buyers here get the architecture and the floor-through layouts that draw people to Brownstone Brooklyn, with condo ownership, at prices that generally run below Park Slope or Cobble Hill. Greene Avenue in particular has some excellent condo conversions.
Crown Heights
Crown Heights works the same way. Park Place and Dean Street have some of the nicest condo inventory in the area, much of it in converted townhouses and smaller boutique buildings, and the price per square foot generally comes in below Prospect Heights.
Williamsburg and Bushwick
Williamsburg and Bushwick come up often with first-time buyers, yet both present issues for a first purchase. Williamsburg is great, but has become incredibly expensive, and a first-time budget often does not buy much space there. In Bushwick, the housing stock is all over the place, and I've seen plenty of new construction where the quality of the materials and workmanship raises questions about how well those buildings will age. A good building in Bushwick takes real effort to find, and an average one is easy to buy and hard to sell. There are good opportunities in both neighborhoods, they simply take more work to find.
When the Appraisal Comes In Low
Once you are in contract, the rest of the process is fairly routine, because I walk my clients through each step and know where the surprises tend to come from. The appraisal is one of them.
I once represented a buyer purchasing a $2,500,000 condo in a converted Carroll Gardens brownstone. The four-story building had been divided into two triplexes. The lower apartment included the garden and a finished basement, while my client's upper apartment occupied the top floors, with better natural light, a roof deck, and a rooftop extension. They were fundamentally different properties, and their valuations should have reflected that.
Lenders were still cautious after the 2008 financial crisis, and there were very few recent comparable sales to work from. The bank’s appraiser chose two nearby units, and both were lower units. He valued those properties without properly accounting for their below-grade square footage, so the comparison undervalued my client’s apartment. The appraisal came in below the purchase price my buyers were in contract for.
My client called me in a panic. When a home appraises low, the bank will only lend against the appraised value, and the buyer either makes up the difference in cash or risks losing the deal. I suggested we go back to the bank, contest the appraisal, and lay out exactly what the appraiser had gotten wrong. After several conversations, the bank agreed and raised the appraisal to the purchase price, and the deal closed.
The appraisal is not the only point where a deal can stall after contract. A co-op board can come back asking for more financial documents, or reject a buyer outright. A lender can drag out the mortgage commitment until the contingency deadline is days away. A condo board can take its time waiving its right of first refusal. None of these happens on every deal, but one of them happens on enough deals that it matters who is running the process. The process only feels routine when the person running it has already seen what can go wrong.
The Real Decisions
Buyers tend to think of purchasing a home as one big decision made at the moment they find the right place. In Brooklyn it is really a series of smaller decisions: your budget, your financing, the kind of ownership you want, the neighborhoods you will consider. The buyers who get the apartment are the ones who made all of those decisions before it showed up. When the right place finally comes along, they're ready to act instead of starting from scratch. Read my full Buyers Guide for more infomation.
Work With Me
Buying your first apartment in Brooklyn? I'll help you understand the market, recognize the right opportunity, and navigate the process with confidence.
