Should I buy?

If your employment situation is stable and your finances can take it, and you're planning to stay for more than 5 years (the market may take awhile to recover; no one can say), and it's cheaper than renting an equivalent apartment, then I say go for it.

It might be worth seeing if you can negotiate a rent decrease with your landlord, but this sounds like an upgrade. Do you like the apartment? Would you want to live there for a long time?

Thanks for your reply, evnyc. I don't know about staying more than 5 years -- hard it say. It's a studio, I can't be certain that my life situation before then wouldn't change in a way so that I'd want or need a bigger/different place.

As for stable employment: I don't know about that either. I work in a volatile industry (not finance).

I'm not really thinking of this as a mooney-making proposition -- I would just want to break even when I sell, and in the meantime enjoyed a lower cost of living and tax benefits.

who in their right mind wants to contemplate staying in a studio for 5 yrs? move on.

How will you feel if the cost for a 1 br in manhattan with a doorman is the same price in two years???

If you an afford a 1-bed at $350, it will probably be a better investment for you. Otherwise, I would go with what evnyc said.

no.

Hey, people do stay in studios for many years. Personally, I would try to negotiate a lower rent or look at renting in a better building. But I am just an anonymous poster on a board with no experience buying, so take it for what it is worth.

but ev, he/she said h/s doesn't know if a studio would work for 5 years, AND employment sitch isn't necessarily secure.

Thanks everyone. If I stay in my current place I'll definitely try to get a lower rent. I've lived here for 6 years and I'm really tired of this apartment, so the thought of continuing to live here doesn't really excite me. The coop is certainly nicer and and is a good-size space for a studio -- 500 sq feet officially.

I COULD technically afford more at the moment -- if I wanted to put more of my savings into this and I wanted my carrying costs to take a bigger monthly chunk out of my bank account. But I feel more comfortable living below my means -- so if I did have to take a somewhat lower paying job (whether renting or buying) it wouldn't kill me.

I can see the mid and high end of the market having more room to drop -- do you see that with the low end as well?

Ooops I'm the same person as the original poster. I have a few different logins I've created over the past months and I accidentally switched them.