Inside Third & Bond: Week 138
This week we’re hearing from Kelly & Charlie, pictured here in their soon-to-be-own kitchen. They are under contract for a 2-bed 2-bath and roof terrace. Don’t let their charming smiles fool you; they had a lot of tough questions before they signed on the dotted line! T+B: Tell us a little about yourselves? How big…
This week we’re hearing from Kelly & Charlie, pictured here in their soon-to-be-own kitchen. They are under contract for a 2-bed 2-bath and roof terrace. Don’t let their charming smiles fool you; they had a lot of tough questions before they signed on the dotted line!
T+B: Tell us a little about yourselves? How big is your family? What are your professions?
Charlie and I met the first week of freshman year of college and started dating about a week later back in 2001. We’ve been engaged since last year but it looks like we will wait on getting married until we can settle into our new home and save a bit more for a wedding. I am a Trusts and Estates attorney and Charlie is an HVAC design engineer. It’s the two of us and our two cats, Benjamin, a 7 year old Himalayan Persian, and Elvis, a 2 year old Ragdoll.
T+B: Benjamin and Elvis are going to love bird-watching out the back windows. What are your favorite things about the unit you have under contract?
There are so many things we love about our unit– the huge windows in the front with the view of the Kentile Floors sign, the open kitchen and vast counter space, the view from the bedrooms of the backyards and how quiet it will be to be away from the street, the central A/C, the quality of the appliances and fixtures, down to the button tiles in the second bathroom. We really think the reason we fell in love with the development and our unit is the attention to detail of the design team and contractors and their refusal to cut corners. We looked at so many places and saw time and again a willingness to sacrifice quality for speed and cost-savings-here you can tell that everyone involved with the project cared about the end result.
T+B: How long had you known about the project before making an offer? Did you strongly consider any other units?
We knew about the project for about a month before we made an offer. We went back a couple of times to scope out the place before making an offer because it was such a big decision and an important investment. We really liked 404 Bond Unit 3 as well, but we ultimately went with this unit because the price was better for our budget and its location on the street really appealed to us.
T+B: When you set out to find a new condo, what were your top 4 must-haves? What was one thing that you really, really hoped for but knew realistically probably wouldn’t get?
Our must haves were: (1) the neighborhood, it had to be in Cobble Hill or Carroll Gardens since we love living here so much, (2) it needed to have two bedrooms so that we would have room to grow, (3) it needed to have a smart layout, open kitchen, a true second bedroom (not a walk-in closet with a window) and (4) it needed to be over 1,000 square feet so that we wouldn’t feel crowded or that the living space was too narrow, which is our current situation in our parlor floor brownstone apartment rental. There were a couple of things we hoped for but didn’t insist on: central A/C, washer and dryer and private outdoor space, all of which we got here. We could have also tolerated a parking space but we knew that was kind of pushing it!
T+B: We’re glad Charlie didn’t have to show up at work, having bought a condo with window air conditioners. Are you from NYC originally? Is this your first real estate purchase in NYC?
Charlie grew up in Yonkers and I grew up on Long Island. We have lived in Brooklyn for a few years now and this is our first real estate purchase generally, let alone in NYC.
T+B: What do you like about this area?
It really feels like a community, there are wonderful people, fabulous restaurants, great parks and the commute to Manhattan is so easy.
T+B: Are you worried about the Gowanus Canal?
We would say that we are concerned about it, sure. You won’t find either of us swimming in it any time soon. But we have reviewed the information available and took a lot of comfort in some of things that we have seen, including a New York Times article interviewing Christos Tsiamis, the scientist from the EPA who is the project manager charged with figuring out how contaminated the Gowanus is and the best means to clean it. When he was asked what would he say if his daughters decided that they were moving near the Gowanus, he responded “[a]bsolutely. I don’t think there are any issues. I would live near the Gowanus Canal. It’s a beautiful area. I think it’s very expensive, though.”
T+B: And we didn’t even bribe him to say that. Do you think Whole Foods will ever open?
We’re not sure, but we aren’t too concerned since we have a few small markets in the immediate vicinity and Park Natural Foods (which we love) is within a few blocks of the development.
T+B: How has it been getting a mortgage?
It hasn’t been too difficult, but there are a couple of restrictions on lending for new developments that have slowed the closing process. One of the big ones is that 51% of the units are required to be in contract before the bank will release the funds. [T+B: 51% is the requirement for Fannie Mae backed loans. Third + Bond is also approved for FHA loans which can close when 30% of the units are in contract.] We think the best thing you can do is find a broker you are comfortable with so that you can ask all your questions since it can be such an intimidating process. Our mortgage broker, Tim Goss from Wells Fargo, has been terrific and we think that has made all the difference.
T+B: Be honest, how important in your decision-making was Third + Bond’s commitment to being green?
It was very important to the both of us. It really set this development apart from any other units we have looked at. The LEED certification process helps identify that the building’s developer and design team made design considerations that will ultimately help us to minimize our energy and water use while ensuring a healthier indoor environment for years to come. Charlie is a LEED Accredited Professional and I can pretty safely say that you have never seen anyone get as excited about a dual flush toilet.
T+B: How did you hear about Third + Bond?
Streeteasy.com
T+B: When in your buying process did you learn about our postings on Brownstoner? Did they have any impact on you (like you secretly posted mean things during negotiation and now only post nice things)?
After we visited the first open house. I read the blog regularly now and any time I start to read the comments Charlie yells at me to stop because I tend to get upset when anyone says anything negative about our new home.
T+B: If there was one thing about how we developed T+B that you’d have wanted us to do differently, what would it be?
Bike storage. We wouldn’t mind some parking spots, but we could definitely use central bike storage.
T+B: Maybe we shouldn’t tell you that we had bike storage planned for each building, but the storage was lost to competing needs. We’re looking into nice sidewalk racks though. Do you have your eye on any particular new furniture to fit out your new castle in the sky?
We are planning on refurbishing my grandmother’s dining room table, which we never had the space for before. We are also planning to buy some pieces from Copeland, which uses sustainably harvested hardwoods from the American Northern Forest and is Forest Stewardship Council certified.
Facebook: Third + Bond Twitter: Thirdbond
www.thirdandbond.com
Inside Third & Bond: Weeks 1-134 [Brownstoner]
Our legal fine print: The complete offering terms are in an Offering Plan available from Sponsor. File No. CD080490. Sponsor: Hudson Third LLC, 826 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
Grand Pa, I am not suggesting that we should keep subsidizing the housing market with FHA and Fannie. I was just pointing out that there were people on this board criticizing the subsidies on the basis that they were a raw deal for people who can’t afford to own, which is a ridiculous argument since the housing subsidies actually provide additional tax revenues to provide services to those who can’t afford to own. I don’t support these subsidies either (and actually agree with everything that you are saying), but it is not the poor who are hurt by these subsidies as others have suggested.
By the way though, I don’t see the logic in replacing these subsidies with a payment to the states and cities to make up for the shortfall in property taxes – if you do that, you are just replacing one taxpayer subsidy for another. I say do away with all of them.
denton nothing’s ‘wrong’ with dual-flush (except to Rob who denigrates everything), I was commenting on the fact that the LEED professional would be ‘excited’ by this relatively mundane technology. Coupled with the ‘full sentence’ market-speak, risible.
t6, at least they’ll be paying more taxes than a single family home 🙂
“To suddenly withdraw all life-support might have sent the economy into a deeper abyss.”
A deeper abyss is the price for hyperinflating a real estate Ponzi scheme that was engineered to prop up the credit bubble of the last 30 years (that was supposed to collapse with the tech bubble). The piper will get his. To price-fix homes (supposed to be illegal) only makes the Ponzi larger and the collapse more catestrophic. An even deeper abyss.
We need to take our medicine (deflation and austerity). We need to live within our productive means. We NEED a depression. I would rather have had no hyperinflated asset bubble and just a deep recession but it wasn’t my call.
***Bid half off peak comps***
27 years old, 5 years out of college, pretty “wife” and buying a 3/4 of a million dollar luxury apartment in Brooklyn.
I can’t say anything positive because I’m seething with jealousy-based hatred.
we’re playing a giant game of musical chairs in many sectors,
our esteemed legislature in Albany was only recently proposing to make up the 9.2 billion deficit by borrowing from the state worker’s pension fund.
talk about circular logic! let’s borrow from the pension fund to pay out current pension liabilities with the promise of paying back the borrowed money at greater interest rates in the future with less tax revenues.
yeah, that’ll work.
meanwhile, there are still some at the national level who are advising hitting the gas on spending since the trillions spent already haven’t seemed to budge the jobs markets. At least the Nobel prize winning economic gnome, Krugman, acknowledges that we may be at the edge of a depression despite his prescription for more spending.
He seems to think we can use this crisis as an economics experiment despite ample evidence in Japan that priming the pump when the source is empty only gets you sludge.
“Yes, reducing the subsidy will likely lead to lower prices freeing up capital to be used for more productive economic uses. ”
Grand Pa, you’re the man!!
I believe the US will regain its competitive edge when housing is seen for what it is: a depreciating physical asset. This is how we think of car ownership in the US, but thanks to the federal government’s heavy subsidies, we have lost sight of this fact in the US, AND, thrown way too much capital into this sector.
“I guess they would argue that we should just do away with these programs, but unfortunately this would lead to lower home prices since finance would be less available and more expensive”
BINGO WE HAVE A WINNER!
Yes, reducing the subsidy will likely lead to lower prices freeing up capital to be used for more productive economic uses.
bkhabitant- so we need to subsidize luxury housing loans so that the property bubble can sustain local government property tax receipts? This is Soviet Era worthy circular logic. How about we cut out the banking middle man? Take the billions used to keep Fannie and FHA afloat and use that money to pay for the property tax shortfalls.
What’s wrong w dual flush toilets? People are always complaining about everything. It’s incremental things like dual flush toilets, waterless urinals, CF bulbs, that have enuf mass to actually mean something. Or should we just all kill ourselves?
And sheesh, nine years of ‘dating’ is certainly long enuf to consider marriage.