As they prepared their marriage ceremony last year, Amanda Ullman and Joe Brent had to find a lot more than just a location: They experienced to concur on the place to dwell.
Mr. Brent was renting the ground floor of an attached brick house throughout from Inwood Hill Park, at the major of Manhattan. He experienced not long ago (and reluctantly) returned to the metropolis from the Hudson Valley for work in musical theater.
“The apartment was like a recording studio with some dwelling amenities in it,” stated Mr. Brent, 46, a multi-instrumentalist and composer, who compensated $1,800 a thirty day period in rent.
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Dr. Ullman, 41, a professional medical director at a pharmaceutical corporation, was living in a a person-bedroom condominium that she owned in Harlem — considerably much too compact to accommodate Mr. Brent’s instruments and tools.
The couple agreed that they necessary extra area than both of them had. But she wanted to continue to be in the town, whilst he longed to return to the country.
With the support of Jennifer Corcoran, an agent with Main Actual Estate and Dr. Ullman’s upstairs neighbor, they figured they could discover a happy medium. An early $850,000 give on a century-previous home in Maplewood, N.J., was accepted. “That was in which we assumed we could find the room that we wanted,” Dr. Ullman explained.
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But the couple quickly backed out, unsure about obtaining into an inflated market during the hurry to the suburbs.
So they settled on Upper Manhattan — Washington Heights, Hudson Heights or Inwood. With a price range of up to $1 million, they could afford a two-bedroom not far from wherever Mr. Brent lived, which would offer some length from the borough’s most crowded places and place them near a number of significant parks.
“I genuinely want obtain to blue and inexperienced stuff — rivers and trees,” Mr. Brent mentioned.
The housing stock in the space was also acceptable for their needs and tastes. “They definitely favored the prewar vibe,” Ms. Corcoran explained.
Nonetheless, components of the neighborhood have been noisy, with revving bikes and loud new music, which concerned Mr. Brent. “If you are performing with delicate microphones, you have to get worried about website traffic, horns and alarms outside the house your windows,” he reported. “New York City creates exclusive difficulties to recording environments.”
Between their selections:
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