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To Buy or Not to Buy

July 22, 2008 12:21 PM

While I'm away shooting in Uganda, we're featuring guest bloggers from right here at "Nightline."  Knowing that the high cost of living in New York forces people to come up with interesting living arrangements, I put a series of questions to the bright, creative, dedicated 20- and 30-something staffers here. I wanted to know what it's like to have a killer job, making good (okay, decent) money, but live in this crazy, overheated, outrageously expensive metropolis.  So I asked what are the hot neighborhoods in New York (all five boroughs)?  Own or rent?  Roommate(s)?  Where do you live versus where you would LIKE to live?  How much would your dream place cost?  Any realistic hopes of achieving it?  How is the real estate news affecting you?

I imagined I'd hear all about them trying to create a sort of "Friends" or "Sex and the City" fantasy, popping in and out of friends' apartments, the bartender at their favorite 'local' automatically setting up their favorite drink, perpetually on the hunt for what's hip.  Instead, the stories were so, well, real  -- funny and maddening and touching.

Like many people tempted by this buyer's market, 24-year-old "Nightline" production associate Erin Brady (pictured below) is contemplating kicking the rental and buying her first place. It's a life-changing decision that has her sweating: 

Independence! I decided that after working at "Nightline" for two years, it was time to move out of my parents' house.

So last summer, one of my closest friends from college and I started looking for apartments. Manhattan was too pricey, as was Long Island, where I grew up. So Queens seemed like the best location – an up-and-coming neighborhood, not too expensive, close enough to work and a 30-minute trip to see friends and family. After what seemed like hundreds of apartments, we found the right one. A month later, we moved in.

Fast forward to last month. My roommate told me she had decided to move to Westchester to be closer to her boyfriend, family and friends, and to save money on gas and tolls. Understandable. But now what?  I can’t afford to live by myself. And as much as I love my parents and my 15-year-old triplet siblings, I couldn't imagine subjecting myself to the unavoidable madness that comes with having teenagers in the house.

After much trepidation, I decided to post an ad on Craigslist to see what type of responses I would get. Some were good and some were really awful. I spoke with one girl who seemed lovely, but after we got off the phone, I thought ‘Is this really worth it?’ Is it worth living with a complete stranger just to save a couple hundred dollars?

Living in Queens doesn’t bring me any joy. It just saves me some money. But if I end up going to Long Island every weekend to visit my family and friends anyway, why stay in Queens? Why am I waiting to live my life on the weekends?

My boyfriend, the ever-practical, responsible guy, sat back and watched me try to navigate the situation. He finally said to me, "Maybe you should put your money towards something? Maybe we should buy a condo in Queens?"

Normally, I would be very opposed to living with someone I was romantically involved with, without at least being engaged. But with the real estate market in the condition that it is in, all I keep hearing in the back of my head is: Carpe diem! Carpe diem! We can afford a decent down payment. Hopefully, we could secure a mortgage with our good credit. Most appealingly, now is the time to get a great deal on a place! A lawyer and a contract would be necessary, in case our relationship went sour, but we would be on our way to homeownership! It was all so exciting, until reason crept in.

A year and a half into a relationship isn't a good time to buy a house. But does a good housing market outweigh that? If I buy, do I want to buy a place in Queens? Am I just talking myself into that because a home on Long Island is WAY out of my price range? Maybe I should find a cheap apartment on Long Island and deal with the back-breaking price of commuting?  Maybe I should continue the hunt for a roommate in Queens?  Fortunately (or unfortunately), I have the next month and a half to ruminate.

July 22, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (2)

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Posted by: William | Jul 22, 2008 9:13:25 PM

Posted by: Katherine | Jul 30, 2008 8:43:16 AM

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