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My husband and I have been seriously apt hunting for a month or so now in Park Slope/Prospect Heights and its been (mostly) incredibly depressing. We’ve seen horribly laid out apartments with 2 bedrooms that really should have only had one, kitchens and bathrooms that were woefully outdated and basically needed to be ripped out, 3rd floor, 4th floor and 5th floor walk-ups, spiral staircases that you needed a jackhammer to get up and down b/c they are so narrow and steep, etc, etc. I was beginning to think that finding a decent place within our budget was a total pipedream…until this weekend.

Through a friend of a friend, we happened to find an amazing (not yet advertised) apartment, in a fab, beautiful, pre-war building, in a spectacular location, and it has everything that we are looking for (high ceilngs, elevator in bldg, charming pre-war details, lots of space, great kitchen minus one or two quirks, original hard wood floors, etc). The *only* hitch is that its an interior courtyard unit–so no view and and the light isn’t fantastic.

Are we crazy for still wanting to buy? I feel like in comparison to everything else we’ve seen, this place is such a gem. Our last apt in manhattan had absolutely killer views and amazing light and our blinds were always closed (except when someone came over so that we could brag about our amazing views).

Am I in major “justifying” mode” or is this problem not *that* horrible if everything else is fab (including the price). With every other place we saw, its been within our budget, but we’d then need to do 50k of work to make it nice and really livable. With this place, I feel like we could do 10-20k of strictly cosmetic work, and it would be a showstopper.

Any opinions? Thanks!