For 10 years, Olivia Web page-Pollard was a serial New York renter, hopping from neighborhood to neighborhood, nearly at all times in Brooklyn, by no means staying in a single place for greater than three years.
In 2021, she moved to Chinatown for a pandemic deal, “as a result of I felt I might by no means have the chance to dwell in Manhattan resulting from rents going up,” she mentioned. However she discovered transferring so usually — seven occasions in 10 years — to be too unsettling. And he or she by no means stopped saving for a down cost.
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Ms. Web page-Pollard, now 31, started her profession as a authorized assistant at a nonprofit. “The pay was not sufficient to dwell on the way in which I wished to dwell as an grownup,” she mentioned. So she labored part-time ready tables, and later matriculated at CUNY College of Regulation. She is now an immigration lawyer at a nonprofit.
By final yr, she was rooming with a buddy in Park Slope, paying $1,300 for her share — till the buddy moved away for work. “I wanted a spot that I knew was steady, the place the hire was not going to skyrocket or my roommate was going to have a life change,” she mentioned. “I wanted one thing that was mine.”
For her first buy, Ms. Web page-Pollard deserted Brooklyn for Queens. She had associates there, she liked the restaurant scene, and he or she knew she might discover a appropriate and inexpensive co-op in Jackson Heights.
“Jackson Heights is attractive,” she mentioned. “The streets are tree-lined and there’s a ton of nice small companies. You may get Nepalese momos down the road from Colombian empanadas and Peruvian ceviche. It’s a microcosm of the entire world by way of delicacies, and it’s one of the various locations within the nation.”
With round $300,000 to spend, she sought a spot with good mild and a low month-to-month upkeep price. She was undeterred by the comparatively lengthy commute to her workplace within the monetary district, although she usually commutes by bicycle, so bike storage was a plus. “I used to be not searching for area,” she mentioned.
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