Getting Real

I've been looking at property lately. I think I am coming down from the initial high, the rush of information flowing straight to the brain - learning the process, assessing neighborhoods, brokers, seeing apartments. Now I'm talking to friends and reconsidering whether it's realistic to go from zero to sixty by the time my rental lease is up in three months.

What I can say definitively are these things:

1) apartments in Manhattan around $200,000 are possible, but rare.

2) said apartments have creative layouts.

3) Sunset Park in Brooklyn: not bad!

4) It's hard to consider leaving Manhattan once you've made it there.

I've broken out the Case-Schiller, discovered a whole world of Brooklyn blogs, researched city waterfront development, and walked new neighborhoods (which, oddly enough, match up with Google Street View pretty well).

So that's about it. There are other factors - will I change jobs, will I even stay in the city once I graduate - but for now, it's an eye-opening hobby, especially with the market the way it is.