"The Hunt"

Sounds like us, lobster. Bid on a few, no dice. Currently in a holding pattern.

We missed out on one at Gramercy House before we bought our UWS co-op.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Was outbid for two co-ops by all cash offers. We are now in contract on a third. Happier with this location anyway.

we lowballed one in a new development and made serious offers on two others, one in murray hill and one in beekman. one was declined and the other was accepted only to be taken off the market two weeks later after we had incurred serious legal fees. this made us far more cautious and particular but our next and last offer on an apartment in sutton place was accepted after a few price counters. i think it turned out to be our best possible purchase even though we are finishing a gut renovation. beautiful space and now we have customized it. hang in there...

Back in 2004 we bid on about 8 places before we finally had a bid accepted. None of our bids were low balls and at least 4 were at or above ask. This was for an UWS 2 bedroom. The market was pretty crazy then.

I think we have bid on 7 places so far and now we are also in a holding pattern.

In 2006 we bid on 3 houses, none were accepted(Sellers/brokers laughed at our bids; they are not laughing now.) We subsequently continued to rent, though we did buy in Costa Rica as place to escape to after the crash, fortunately things did not get as bad as I thought they would.

I measure my search in years, not bids, and it took me 5 to learn what the hell I was doing, save a substantial downpayment, and wait for prices to come down (not that I expected that to happen in 2005). Totally worth it, as I found that needle in the haystack (terribly marketed and staged with qualities I knew I would love that weren't emphasized) 30% below peak comps and beating comparable rentals by the time I was done negotiating.

In those 5 years I had one accepted bid on an HDFC unit that was supposed to raise its income restrictions but never did, one I was very close on but I was outbid before the contract went out, one accepted offer that I walked away from after discovering Street Easy and comparables and realizing it was overpriced, one contract out that I walked away from after having an inspection done, and a few other bids that were rejected. I consider all of them bullets dodged, and I'm thrilled that I never chased prices beyond what I thought was sensible or compromised on what mattered to me.

Hi guys. Hope you're all doing well.

tenemental!! you've been missed. congrats on the search and purchase.

Thank you, AR. *big smile*

rlmnyc and NYREnewbie, you are both much smarter than I am. I've been schlepping myself around in the heat this summer looking at (mostly) apartments that have been on the market for months. I decided to take the next few weekends off - maybe the whole month of August.

Chris, the UES and UWS where I'm looking are filled with all-cash buyers. It can be very frustrating.

Rosina, I've enjoyed reading about your apartment renovation and I've learned alot from your discussions. Your idea of using an architect who offers design assistance is excellent and I plan on trying to find such an artitect myself when I buy an apartment.

Keith, can we have the next SE meetup at your vacation home in Costa Rica? :)

tenemental, your statement "never chase(d) prices beyond what I thought was sensible or compromised(d) on what mattered to me" is exactly how I feel and good advice for everyone on SE.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their apartment search experiences.

tenemental, great to have you back (however temporarily!). Really happy you came out on top - congrats on the new place! Any hints as to location? I assume east village?

Hey bjw, thanks. I'm not running off, I'm sure I'll post from time to time, currently trying to figure out how best to fill the hours previously occupied by my RE obsession.

Don't want to say too much about the new apt, but it's no longer ground zero for late-night bellowing drunks, while stilling being close to my favorite places. Much bigger than the old rental, and a nicer building (well, the old one was a tenement).

Did you ever get that bike?

In other words tenemental, the only late night bellowing drunks are coming from your favorite bars? That's what I call a "have your cake and eat it too" bullseye. Seriously, congratulations on the your new home and by the way...have you noticed that there are no more tenements? They seemed to have all become "pre war buildings".

Ha, no lizyank, just bad sentence structure. I'm not directly over a loud bar any more, but a short walk to plenty of them.

A friend told me a funny story...his family visited from Wisconsin and they all went to the LES Tenement Museum, where they witnessed the 'terrible living conditions' of times past. Then they went to his walk-up building in Prospect Heights for the first time and stood around going "hey, wait a minute..."

http://gothamist.com/2013/11/07/deer_with_arrow_through_its_head.php

Weird thread. Why are all these people being so civil to one another?

I agree! This thread is so pleasant. I wish the message board was not so toxic nowadays. There are a high percentage of comments that are written by trolls who are making irrelevant, often personal comments instead of actually contributing to a useful discussion. Usually i don't understand why old threads are being brought up now (notice this one was last commented on 3 years ago before HB posted a link), but in this case, it just reminds me about how useful this message board could be if it were used in a different way.

sp21, didn't you just join SE 9 months or so ago?

The old threads are being brought up now because if you changed your alias recently, as fieldschester has done, you can't initiate a new discussion.

So if I want to talk about something using my new alias, I have to dig around until I find a relevant conversation from years ago and comment on that.