A Big "THANKS" to all of you Streeteasy bloggers....

Good luck!

Congratulations to you. Good things come to those that wait. Enjoy your new home !

Congratulations and good luck! We've bought our place recently too but check streeteasy regularly to "take the pulse" of the market and read up on renovation tips, home development ideas, neighborhood gossip about nearby buildings (and entertainment!)

Congrats! Agree that StreetEasy is essential to all those purchasing an apt. in manhattan.

August 1, 2007 - 7:30 pm - after all the waiting, and (yet more) extensions, and whatever else, we've just closed, got our keys, and have moved into our brand new place.

I have learned something useful. I really love this place that we've bought. After living in shared places, and then rentals, and then buying my first place, and then my second, (and so on, and so on, over a 17 year period in Manhattan), I'm finally where I want to live for a looong time. If the real estate market drops (and it very well may - or may not), I really don't care. Honsetly. If had my money in stocks, that would probably drop as well. But I have to live somewhere. And the thought of coming home to this place every day from here on out and thinking of it only as a value up or down proposition, just doesn't really have meaning. What has meaning is the fact that I'm really happy with my home, and know that I will be just as happy years and years from now.

There's alot of back and forth schadenfreude on many of the other posts from the red arrow folks as well as the black arrow folks. They're all missing the big picture. Money just isn't worth getting all that emotional over. But a home that you really love? Now THAT'S something worth getting emotional over!

Best of luck to you all!

#6 it sounds like you know exactly what you wanted and went for it. Congratulations and good luck!!

congrats!
How was the quality of construction in the end?
How's your punchlist?

I know new construction places always have small punchlist issues but were there any surprises?

Do you think you will change anything?

What do you like the most?

#8:

Quality of construction, I would say, was standard 'high-end' developer-esque. We expected nothing more - most developers have no real imagination, and that's just fine. You know it's never going to be as good as what you would do given unlimited resources and lavishing your own personal attention on it, but it's good enough for now. The guts of the building, however, were done very, very well, which is really what I cared about as far as the developer goes.

The punchlist started out rather long (admittedly, mostly appearance related issues - very few major concerns), and we've got it whittled down to less than 10 items, which we hope will be attended to in the next week or so.

No major surprises, when all is said and done.

We will completely gut renovate the place. We've already been in discussion with our architects for the past three or four months prior to close, and the working drawings should be done in about another week.

What we like the most is what we bought the unit for - great 'bones' that we will customize to our wants/needs, and perfect location (for us). I think (I hope) when we're all done with the gut reno that it will really be a super smashing place. And I like not being in an icky furnished rental with all my stuff in storage anymore also!