Sale at 361 12th Street #1

The listing clearly says "... This 1300+ square foot home is a legal one bedroom, but carefully designed and set up as a 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath apartment..." as per what the current owners did. They broker is being completely upfront, so I don't see the problem.

What they're calling a second bedroom is in the cellar, without the light/air/egress required for a proper bedroom. The sliding glass doors lead to a full-depth pit (called "additional private outdoor patio") with a roof of subway grating.

In a new development, the builder would have to call it recreation space, or home office, or some other name not suggestive of sleeping in the Black Hole of Calcutta. There's only a half-bath because the city wouldn't permit a full bath down there, in a vain attempt to keep people from living as if it's 1870 in a Lower East Side tenement.

The owners of the unit can cut it up however they want -- the broker just covered her butt by saying it a legal 1BR. Which it is. And ONLY is. Where one chooses to sleep (or put a bed) is their business.

Related question: NWT, what is the legal requirement for egress for a bedroom?

You people are being unkind. That would be an absolutely lovely place for a vampire. The cellar is perfect for avoiding those pesky rays of sun. And that easy-backyard-over-the-fence access from the bedroom is ideal for late-night jaunts into the neighborhood to do a little feeding on unsuspecting maidens. You could dash out and have a bite and then be back in your coffin in a jiffy.

Wow; they've priced it as if all 1300 of those square feet counted as real square feet -- and for a higher $/sf than the other two apartments in the building went for!

Yes, the description says it's a one bedroom, but what bothered me is the listing formally classifies the apartment as a two bedroom.

The narrative description is one thing, but it's often full of silly stuff and we all know it; but the formal description, where you find the monthly charges, the financing limits, pet policy, etc., is inaccurate.

So I have software looking for 2 bedrooms for me, and this apartment came up. But it's not a 2 bedroom, so it should not have come up, in my humble opinion. Very often the narrative description gets separated from the formal listing statistics.

So why is this OK? In my book it's not OK.

It isn't. And since most inconvenienced are other brokers who are searching for listings for their clients, the other brokers ought to take note of this broker.