Although a local of Chicago, Religion Pennick considers herself a New Yorker. She lived within the metropolis on and off for twenty years, renting in several Brooklyn neighborhoods.
“I used to be unable to buy an residence in Brooklyn in the course of the Nineties,” mentioned Ms. Pennick, 56, who had scholar mortgage debt after incomes levels from the College of Michigan and New York College. “If I had performed that, I’d be sitting fairly proper now. I do know I’ve to recover from that, however I most likely by no means will.”
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Ms. Pennick, who’s a filmmaker and author — her e-book in regards to the R&B star D’Angelo’s album “Voodoo” got here out in 2020 — refers to herself as a “quasi-starving artist.” She at present works as an promoting copywriter in SoHo.
Unemployed at first of the pandemic, Ms. Pennick returned to Chicago and lived together with her mom. She landed a job and saved diligently for a down cost, all the time planning to return to New York. “This metropolis is the place the place I could be my genuine self,” she mentioned. “Plus, my pals and church dwelling are right here. I’m of the ‘New York or nowhere’ ilk.”
She knew she couldn’t hunt from afar. “The best way one thing appears on Zoom and FaceTime shouldn’t be the identical as being within the house and opening up the cupboard doorways and all that,” she mentioned.
So she’d fly in from Chicago for months at a time, staying with good pals — a pair from her church in Fort Greene, Brooklyn — who had an additional bed room. In her worth vary of $200,000 to $300,000, she needed a one-bedroom co-op, although a big studio would do. Ideally, she’d discover a move-in-ready place with a dishwasher and respectable closet house, in a constructing with a live-in tremendous and a laundry room.
She thought-about the Bronx, however couldn’t discover a appropriate place near a subway station, which was a precedence. Anyway, the Bronx was removed from pals, church and work. So she targeted on central Brooklyn, which had extra subway choices.
Ms. Pennick couldn’t afford to place greater than 10 % down, which she knew restricted her choices. (And he or she wasn’t eligible for first-time homebuyer packages, which she known as “ridiculously inflexible and unrealistic with their earnings cutoffs.”) She was referred to Natalie McCormack Richards, an unbiased dealer, who steered her away from co-ops requiring 20 %.
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