Jaime Archer didn’t plan to buy a home at 27. The only child of a single mother, Ms. Archer expected that one day, after her mother died, she might inherit enough to scrape together a down payment.
But then her mother made a surprising proposal: Rather than dispersing all of her money in her will, she would bequeath some of it earlier if Ms. Archer was interested in buying an apartment. After enduring two years’ worth of problems in her newly built rental in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Ms. Archer was.
“I know that nobody really has a good rental experience, but mine was quite bad,” said Ms. Archer, the editorial operations manager for a media company. “I came to realize that things that are new construction aren’t built very well.”
Start-up headaches, like a lack of mail and trash service, had vexed her since the beginning of the lease. And the longer she lived in her apartment, the more she noticed small construction issues, like drywall without caulk on the seams and tiles caked with dried grout.
She brought her concerns to her landlord, with the help of Frank Seegitz, a broker with Douglas Elliman who had represented the developer. “She was the first person in the building,” Mr. Seegitz said. “I advocated for her.”
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His support was enough to earn Ms. Archer’s trust, so when her mother offered the money, Ms. Archer turned to Mr. Seegitz to help find a one-bedroom nearby. One of the first things she told him was that she had realized that modern was not her aesthetic.
“I went in the exact opposite direction, looking at very nice old apartments to buy, because I did not want to do the new-construction thing anymore,” she said.
With her own savings and her mother’s help on a down payment, Ms. Archer figured she could spend up to $700,000, although she hoped to stay closer to $600,000.
Mr. Seegitz encouraged her to begin looking right away, and to brace herself for a long search. “First-time homeowners usually see double, sometimes triple the amount of inventory,” he said. “I told her it’s best to see many properties, because it’ll start to cement the end property that you want.”
Ms. Archer knew she didn’t want to cast too wide a net in terms of location. She felt settled in Crown Heights: She loved the proximity to Prospect Park, and knew where to get groceries and her favorite bagels. She would be sharing the new space with her red-haired tabby cat, Scully, and hoped to get a dog in the future, so she needed a pet-friendly building. And as an avid baker, she wanted a kitchen large enough for her pans and tins of flour, as well as large appliances like a KitchenAid mixer.
Ms. Archer began looking seriously in January, and she and Mr. Seegitz spent every weekend for the next two months — including during a blizzard — touring more than 20 apartments.
Among her options:
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