Looking for a Studio in Downtown Brooklyn for Much less Than $400,000: She Was Shocked by the Choices

The primary time Jenn Leyva moved to New York, it was to begin school at Columbia College. After commencement, the San Diego native headed to Seoul for a two-year stint instructing English after which returned to town in 2015 to pursue a profession as a public faculty instructor. However she was brief on funds, so a good friend supplied to sublet her a room in a home in Midwood, Brooklyn, the place she would have six housemates.

Ms. Leyva, now 32, jumped on the probability. By 2021, she was a middle-school chemistry instructor in Manhattan, nonetheless residing in that Midwood home. She took Zoom calls in a nook of the communal front room and made positive to all the time wash her dishes.

“I shared a rest room with two different roommates,” she stated. “Our kitchen had two fridges, and we had a six-burner range the place two folks may simply be cooking on the similar time.”

All of the whereas, she was tucking cash away in a financial savings account, hoping to amass a down cost for a spot of her personal. She figured she may spend as much as $2,000 a month on a mortgage, which, together with her financial savings, would enable her a finances of round $350,000 for the acquisition. Because the pandemic started to wane and rates of interest crept up, she determined the time had come.

“I needed to not less than begin trying and see if there was something I appreciated that I may afford,” she stated. “And if there wasn’t, I figured I may wait and preserve saving cash.”

[Did you recently buy or rent a home? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]

She was pleasantly stunned by the choices she discovered on-line: a handful of studios for lower than $400,000, simply south of the Brooklyn Bridge, within the nook of the borough the place leafy Brooklyn Heights meets Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn. And all the residences met her standards: They have been inside strolling distance of a number of subway traces, had a tub in addition to a bathe, and had a separate kitchen house the place she may get pleasure from her elaborate baking initiatives.

It felt too good to be true. “Studios have been low-cost, as a result of everybody was nonetheless working from residence and needed a one-bedroom with a separate sleeping house and work house,” Ms. Leyva stated. “However my work house is in Manhattan.”

She teamed up with Leora Blumberg Rubinstein, a realtor with Douglas Elliman, who authorized of her technique. “Generally when you could have a very pretty neighborhood that’s additionally tremendous costly, it’s worthwhile to take a look at the perimeter to search out one thing that meets your finances,” she stated. “Jenn was very open-minded.”

Among the many choices:

Discover out what occurred subsequent by answering these two questions: