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Listen, it’s not as though getting an apartment in New York has ever been easy. But one could probably argue that it has never been harder than it is right now. The most god-awful studios are regularly renting for thousands and thousands of dollars with lines of interested tenants out the door. Here, we’ll find the actually worth-looking-ats, the actually worth-the-costs, and the surprisingly affordable-for-those-parquet-floors from all around the internet.
A bit of a bleak week for inventory out there, folks. I decided to choose three neighborhoods at random, plucking them out of the (proverbial) hat to see what was affordable, what wasn’t, and what was just pretty to look at. Bed-Stuy had a lot of options, at least; Sunset Park was disappointingly sparse; and Ridgewood was uninspiring. That said, there are a few gems in there, particularly if you’re in the market for a one-to-three-bedroom floor-through!
Bed-Stuy Apartments
$7,000, 3-bedroom: Kinda ugly, kinda affordable, kinda luxe duplex in a well-located Bed-Stuy brownstone. Luxe, to me, means having three bathrooms and a Viking fridge, just to be clear. The kitchen and the roof-deck are the highlights here.
$6,600, 3-bedroom: A stunner. No notes. It was built in 1899 and is so well preserved, with original details in all the right places. The pier mirrors alone! And a garden that’s both wild and tamed. And a really renovated, but not ugly, bathroom. Love it, wish I could afford it.
$6,000, 2-bedroom: A two-bedroom, three-bathroom rowhouse situation that is featured here for one reason and one reason alone: the backhouse!!! Imagine? Having an ADU in New York City? There’s also a spot for your car, a grill, and an elevated terrace.
$4,200, 2-bedroom: Another duplex with a gorgeous main room that gets an unprecedented amount of natural light. Nicely maintained parquet floors and crown moldings. Things go downhill from there, though. The listing says there’s room for a California king in both bedrooms — “no exaggeration here,” it promises — but bedroom No. 2 is looking narrow.
$3,850, 2-bedroom: Are we sick of Bed-Stuy duplexes? Well, we shouldn’t be, because the prices keep going down. This one might be the most basement-y, probably because of all the mahogany and exposed brick.
$3,750, 1-bedroom: A lot to like! The kitchen has old chipping hardwood instead of linoleum, which I love. The bathroom is committing to an aquamarine-tile motif that I can get behind, and the listing is lying when it says one bedroom — this is firmly a 1.5!
$2,900, 1-bedroom: This one has a not-so-hideous kitchen renovation, beautiful hardwood floors, and that nice, millennial-white tiling in the kitchen.
$2,100, 1-bedroom: One more! Simple, nice, with a strangely large number of acute (or is it obtuse??) angles. And a particularly beautiful fireplace.
$2,850, 1-bedroom: A little rough around the edges, with some hasty Home Depot detailing, but by and large this is a beautiful floor-through apartment in a Bed-Stuy townhouse. Stained glass is nice, the ceilings are sky-high, and it gets great natural light.
$2,700, 1-bedroom: I’m sorry for my one-track brownstone mind. I could list the new developments, but once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all, and they’re less fun! This one definitely has the barest of bones, but it’s in the neighborhood of affordable with hardwood floors and beautifully restored decorative fireplaces. Ignore the cheap doors.
Sunset Park Apartments
$1,621, 1-bedroom: Cheapest one-bedroom I’ve seen in a while! Plus: parquet floors, a nice view, a ceramic tub … could be (a lot) worse.
$2,700, 3-bedroom: That prewar, Sunset Park good-good. With crown moldings, parquet floors, and rooms on rooms on rooms. Also, it’s a half-block from the water. Pretty good deal for being nearly waterfront. Bathrooms grim, though.
$3,150, 1-bedroom: Okay, this is maybe my favorite of the bunch. The terra-cotta tile in the kitchen with the charming tiled backsplash?? The lacquered cherry wood isn’t even bothering me that much. And there’s an updated bathroom — very rare!
Ridgewood Apartments
$3,100, 3-bedroom: This has a — I don’t know how else to say it — Full House feeling to it. The bay windows, the skylight, the front porch. Okay, so the inside is not particularly aesthetically inspiring, and the construction seems a bit shoddy, but we’ll take what we can get for all that space.
$2,500, 1-bedroom: Another very basic, very uninspiring, totally practical one-bedroom at a relatively human price point. I don’t like the stained wood, and the linoleum in the kitchen is rough, but the natural light is good. And it’s near a whole spate of trains!!
$2,400, 1-bedroom: Tree-house feel here. Good floors, nice dappled light coming in through the leaves outside. Hard to say how one might move from the shower to the sink in the bathroom, but that’s an issue for later.
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