Anne Machalinski

Here's how those with bad credit or freelance salaries can pull this whole renting thing off.

In medium to large apartment buildings, it’s not uncommon to find two, four or more units for sale in the same building at the same time. So how do you get the best price for your co-op or condo when there are other similar units for sale? From making modest updates to telling a story with staging, here are tips from brokers on making your unit the “belle of the ball,” as Holly Sose, an agent with City Connections, put it.

Whether you want to retile your bathroom or take on a major gut rehab, renovating in New York City is never fast, simple, cheap or trouble-free. "Anytime anyone does construction, it’s always so risky,” says John F. Grubin, a partner at Wasserman, Grubin & Rogers, a Manhattan-based law firm that specializes in construction law, commercial litigation and government contracts. “There are always problems." Enter renovation insurance, an intriguing new product rolled out in November by a company called Bolster.

While many 22-year-olds are looking to snag their first job and shacking up with a crew of roommates in far-out Brooklyn, one--Polly Mosendz--recently bought her first piece of property in Manhattan, a $250,000, 418-square-foot co-op in the Village. Earlier this fall, she wrote about that experience in The Observer. Major Internet backlash ensued in publications like Gawker and the Huffington Post, where her experience was categorized as anything but “normal"--at least as far as coming up with a $50k downpayment at the typically paycheck-to-paycheck age of 22. But to Mosendz, amassing the necessary capital was only a fraction of the challenge at hand. "Buying an apartment in your early twenties is more than a matter of having the money to do so," she told BrickUnderground when we caught up with her. "It's a constant fight to be taken seriously by sellers, their agents, lawyers, financial institutions, and in the worst cases, even your own broker. All the money in the world doesn't matter if you don't have a good team on your side pushing the process forward." If you're under 25 looking to make your property dream a reality, read BrickUnderground's guide to How to Buy a NYC Apartment and keep the following age-appropriate tips and tactics in mind.