Can Someone Explain This?

G disagrees about the unattainability of the Upper West Side and Murray Hill. I hope he is right.

I read the monthly statistics on the housing market closely: the decline in existing home sales, the increase in housing inventories.

But is it really a buyers' market? Not in Manhattan and Brooklyn. They're special. That's why all of us are here putting up with all of this.

Sometimes G and I are sure the prices are coming down, then the next week, we feel the prices going up. Then two years go by and yep, apartment prices are definitely up. Why are we surprised? The rich buy the big apartments and the rich buy the small apartments for their kids or a pied a terre.

Just focusing on the articles I want to believe, I read now that the New York market has a hairline crack. I'm going to follow a few newly listed apartments and watch the prices get slashed or see how quickly they go into contract.

Movin' On Up or Movin' On Out?

In the last dozen years, G and I have lived in the East Village, Jackson Heights, Carroll Gardens, Downtown Brooklyn and Battery Park City.

Jackson Heights and Carroll Gardens were mistakes, but not because of the neighborhoods. Both places were too far from the subway.

Lesson: never evaluate the walk to the subway on a warm, sunny day. You will be tempted to say, "a bit of a walk, but I need the exercise." Take that walk on a miserable rainy, windy day and decide how much you need that exercise.

Distance wasn't the only problem. In Jackson Heights, we couldn't stand the intrusive, noisy neighbors above and below. In Carroll Gardens, new wood floors, french doors and sunlight streaming through the apartment blinded me to the tiny bathroom and lack of closets.

The East Village: we outgrew it in more ways then one. Aside from constant construction, Downtown Brooklyn was great--until we got itchy during the real estate gold rush.

It felt good to be back in Manhattan when we disembarked in Battery Park City. We like our apartment and our Hudson River view. We could lose the kids and the wind. But sometimes the West Side Highway feels like a mountain range that we don't have the strength to cross.

Of all our ex-neighborhoods, we are most likely to return to Jackson Heights. (Surprised?) Also making the cut: Astoria, Hunter's Point, Long Island City, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and Washington Heights.

Desirable, but mostly unattainable are: the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side (west of 1st ave), Murray Hill, and the West Village. Each of these neighborhoods have the potential to produce an affordable fluke. But are we fast enough to snag it?

NYC Real Estate: An Unhealthy Obsession

This is the floor plan of the apartment G and I are renting. Decent, right? Enough closet space, for sure. But no couple would rattle around in it trying to figure out how to use all the space.

So why can't we find a comparable apartment to buy?

G and I sold our downtown Brooklyn apartment in May, 2005. We put the profit in auction rate securities, a cash equivalent, our stockbroker told us. We expected to spend the money within a few months, a year at the most, for a hefty downpayment on a new, better apartment.

After four months, we fled a Carroll Gardens rental to another rental--the big gray apartment complex in Battery Park City. Now its almost May 2008 and we are still in BPC. No, we haven't given up owning our dream apartment--at the right price and the right distance from the subway.

Searching the NYC real estate listings qualifies as a bona fide hobby for us. As soon as we learned our securities were frozen as part of the Wall Street shakeout, we increased the intensity of our real estate web surfing. Self defeating? Yes, but isn't that part of the masochism of buying apartments in New York?