A First-Time Buyer Pours Years of Savings Into a Brooklyn Condo. Which One Did He Choose?

Jamil Walker thought his first home purchase would be in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Around two years ago, while living and working there, he came close to buying a condominium under construction. But instead, Mr. Walker, who had previously lived in Brooklyn for 14 years, decided to return to New York.

 

“A lot of my peers who don’t live in coastal cities bought earlier,” he said. “I was never sure about where I wanted to plant roots, but I spent my formative years in New York, and it felt like home.”

 

Besides, he learned that in New York he could get more for less. “Why is it cheaper to buy in Brooklyn than in the Bay Area?” he asked himself. “It was crazy.”

 

[Did you recently buy or rent a home in the New York metro area? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]

 

A year and a half ago, Mr. Walker, now 40, was able to transfer to the New York office of Facebook, where he works in communications. He rented a one-bedroom in a new Long Island City, Queens, building while he went on the hunt.

 

For years, he had been putting every spare dollar into his condo fund. “If I got a bonus at work, it went to the condo fund,” he said. “Friends would say, ‘Let’s go on this trip,’ and I would say, ‘No, I am putting that in my condo fund.’ I was very disciplined when it came to that account.”

 

His Long Island City rental building had a gym and a pool, but his apartment faced a dim inner courtyard, and the neighborhood felt sterile.

 

“As nice as those buildings are, it didn’t feel like a community,” he said. He preferred something smaller and homier. His budget for a one-bedroom condominium was up to $700,000.

 

He wanted a washer-dryer (or at least a hookup), a dishwasher, central air-conditioning, private outdoor space and a good spot for his beloved 43-gallon saltwater fish tank — features he was likelier to find in a new building.

 

Mr. Walker enlisted the help of Anthony L. Morris, an associate broker at the Corcoran Group, who was referred by a former boss.

 

Ideally, the unit would be on a top floor. Mr. Walker learned the value of that when he had an upstairs neighbor who exercised at the crack of dawn. He often asked whether the floors in a building were concrete, a question typically met with a noncommittal response: “Let me get back to you.” (Nobody did.)

 

“On multiple occasions, we had the opportunity to go into the apartment above to check the noise,” said Mr. Morris, who would stomp around upstairs while Mr. Walker listened from below. If he could hear footsteps, he would cross the unit off his list.

 

Among his choices:

 

No. 1

 

Top-Floor Bushwick Condo