How did you select your neighborhood(s) for your apartment search?

lobster, my approach was kind of all over the place: when I first began my search I was living on the UWS and really focused on the West 70s/80s as well as in Chelsea (prices were similar and I loved both neighborhoods' atmosphere and convenience to basic shopping and transportation). I then had the somewhat crazy notion of buying a multi-family Brooklyn brownstone, occupying one of the units, and renting out the rest. Unfortunately, the numbers never worked out (looked in Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill, due to their desirability and relative proximity to Manhattan - Brooklyn Heights was/is too pricey and bit stodgier in terms of nightlife). When I came back to the idea of an apartment, I was renting in Nolita and tried my darnedest to find a suitable coop there - no dice either. Since I was drawn more and more by the art and music scenes downtown, I started to shy away from the UWS and look more at the East Village and Williamsburg (an area I'd never considered before, as I unfortunately took the stereotypes at face value). The benefits in terms of space, layouts were the most obvious, but I was really won over by the neighborhood's vibe, surprising amount of good shopping/restaurants (in addition to the art/nightlife), and how little of a difference it was to be by 1st Ave vs Bedford Ave (I'm sure some will disagree, but I'm convinced it's largely psychological, unless the L explodes).

To me the most important thing was commute time/ease of commute to work. I didnt want to have to change trains and I didnt want to travel more than 20 mins or so. My job is very stable so I know that I will have this same commute as long as I want it. Going out with friends, to museuems, shopping, etc was secondary because no matter where I chose to live I would still have to travel around the city to satisfy these needs (ie no one neighborhood has all of the things that I love to do in the city).

lobster, my husband and I are longtime UWS renters who can't imagine ourselves anywhere else. Though there are many wonderful neighborhoods in Manhattan (and the other boroughs, for that matter), we love the proximity to two parks, easy public transportation access, and the slight remove from the center of excitement (downtown). Additionally, I've worked on the UWS for quite a while, and love walking to work; that's the cherry on the sundae.

for me it was schools and ease of commute. i will take an extra 5-10 minute commute to be next to multiple transportation options that run on regular basis.

when i was looking for neighborhoods in NJ, sorry to mention that state, just making a point. i found a town that has a bus to NYC every 6-7 minutes and a train every 12 minutes with the commute of approx 1 hour, 5-7 minutes less to be exact. great schools was a top concern. other people told me that i was crazy to look there because i can live a few miles over and have a commute of 45 minutes. the issue is that there was only trains and that run every 1/2 hour during peak. i'll take the extra 10 minute commute then missing the train and having to wait for 1/2 hour any day.

Everyone knows my story already - I went for bars/restaurants/shops/and gemutlich atmosphere. Also 10 minutes from Union Square. But if you don't already know it, check out THE PRIORITIZER - the coolest tool! It's on the CNN/Money site and you put in all your options and it spits out what you REALLY think. I use it for all kinds of things - can't recommend it highly enough: prioritize_101.jsp.html

For me, it's because of school for the kids. I started out with Financial District where I worked, but I didn't like the environment, too much construction and noise. I moved on to Lower East Side, besides Nest+M, other schools didn't have that good a reputation. Went on to the Village and then midtown, finally settled on Upper East Side. PS6 and PS290 are top schools in the city. 4,5 and 6 trains were fast and often (a little too crowded) but it's convenient and only 30 minutes to downtown. UES has many shops and resturants and closed to all the museum and park.

well, I am still looking, obvs....used to be an UWSer, and then met some fellow expatriates who all live up in Hamilton Heights.
So when my lease was up I found a great cheap 1-BR up here, and for the first time in 10 years was able to live on my own, and not in a shoebox at that.

So now I am looking to buy up here also; since I have been here for 3 years and like it (schools are not a consideration that I need to take into account...), and the prices and the bicycle-commute to Midtown is great, too....

I have lived all over manhattan and love sutton place -- cannot imagine living elsewhere in nyc -- would rather move to Paris.

Lobster, I think you know our story too -- my husband and I owned two properties, and cast a very wide net, since we had the option of trading in just one or trading in both. We found that trading in both still wouldn't buy us a palace in a far-flung area -- Canco Lofts in Jersey City, for example, not that great; nice house in Forest Hills Gardens still out of reach.

So we focused back on Manhattan. We bid on something in Gramercy, but the owner wouldn't wait for us to sell property #2.

We then looked at the best properties at our lower price point regardless of neighborhood -- came up with one in Chinatown, one in SoHa, and one here on the Upper Upper West Side. We picked this one because of the light, but honestly, we would have been happy in any of them.

Summary: after starting our search as "neighborhood, then property" we flipped to looking at "property, then neighborhood."

and it's worked out better than fine.

We are not yet blessed with kids but I went to pretty terrible public schools, so from where I stand, most NYC public elementaries are quite decent.

ali r.

My grandparents spent their lives trying to get away from the EV/Lower East Side, and after working hard all my life and being very successful, I have ended up back on the Bowery. Couldn't be happier.

modern,

a friend of mine once joked that since she too had been unable to escape the shtetl Lower East Side of her grandparents, she assumed that in the next generation it would be "back to Lithuania."

ali

We're in Harlem (Hamilton Heights on Convent) and love it, after a circuitous route including a tour of duty in the suburbs. Even the best public schools won't work for our daughter who has special needs and absolutely requires a small class. So it didn't make sense for us to pay more to live in a better SD, and we wanted to maximize the housing for the lowest monthly expense in order to always be certain to have enough money for her therapies and tuition. It takes 20 minutes to get to school and work; we have a very small number of decent restaurants (love Covo and Dinosaur BBQ), great grocery at Fairway (we cook a lot) and a beautiful, huge home. The neighborhood has been so welcoming. We do retail shopping on the UWS and often actually make an outing of it and walk. We too are returning to our roots as both grandmothers worked as domestics in this neighborhood, but next stop for us is back to the potato bogs!

So many variables. Our list of wants is extremely similar to Loftys. As they say to each his (her) own.

Funny how we are here in SE, that we would rather move to Paris (as if that were a matter of choice) but of course only to certain arrondissements only, Mon Dieu! Never a banlieu! So many of us have fancy web identities as wealthy RE investors while secretly eating from a can and dreading the end of unemployment benefits. Anyway, so nobody has mentioned prices. I will dare to. Since I have 2 children, I tried to limit my search to areas that had good elementary schools and were in districts also with good middle schools. That limits you a lot. After 2 years of pain I realized that the areas of Manhattan that fit that bill were too expensive and decided to look in Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens & Park Slope, which are all in school district 15, in Brooklyn. In terms of psf those areas are not very different from, say, Yorkville, but the apartments are usually walk-ups with very low taxes, so you'll be paying between $0.4 and $0.7 psf maintenance and taxes combined. That shaves $1000 a month or more in expenses for a family sized apartment (my impression, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there are walk-ups in Yorkville but they're usually smaller apartments, former tenements, basically).

I appreciate everyone's thoughtful comments as I know there have been many discussions on this site about favorite neighborhoods and the like. Bjw, I found the depiction of your search very helpful in that I sometimes feel that my search has taken me "all over the place" as well- I'm glad that you found the right neighborhood for yourself. Loftydreams, I will try the prioritizer that you recommended on the CNN/Money site. Ali, you summed up my dilemma so well. The "neighborhood, then property" vs. "property, then neighborhood". Mommyesq, I grew up with a special needs sister and from what I've read of your posts here and in other discussions, you sound like an amazing mother who has her priorities set right. Again, thanks to everyone who responded- all your comments have been very helpful for me and my husband in our neverending apartment search (and then after we buy, I know there's the renovations to look forward to).