BrickUnderground

My wife and I had been renting for 10 years when, literally the day after we got back from our honeymoon a little over a year ago, we saw the one-bedroom condo we own now. It was the model apartment in a new, four-story Williamsburg building with less than a dozen units and no elevator or doorman. 

The apartment had 15-foot ceilings, a mezzanine level, and a backyard patio.  Priced in the mid $400,000's  including the second bathroom that we asked the contractor to put in upstairs, it was a lot cheaper than other condos we saw of that size, which were in the $600k+ range, though some had more amenities.  The building sold out in 6 or 8 weeks at a time when nothing was really selling.

We went into contract in October of 2009 and our closing was scheduled for the end of January 2010.  

Manhattan is a nice option if you can afford it. But sacrificing space and quality and/or paying what's necessary to score a decent apartment in the borough doesn't appeal to all. This week we feature an interesting option in Midwood, Brooklyn: A newly constructed "green" building, The Madison at 3692 Bedford Avenue, where apartments rent for less than half of comparable units in Manhattan. 

It is a fact of New York City rental life that landlords typically won’t negotiate leases beyond (sometimes) the amount of monthly rent. But don’t assume that just because your landlord insists on some crazy lease provision that he or she can hold you to it.

“There may be very significant portions of a residential lease--whether it be a proprietary lease for a coop or a rental--that are either completely unenforceable by the landlord or that with a little help from the tenant may be unenforceable,” says  Manhattan real estate attorney Steven Wagner of Porzio, Bromberg & Newman.

Read on for the Big 5.