Jeanine Edwards at all times wished to purchase her personal place, however as a lifelong New Yorker, she wasn’t positive it was attainable. She felt weighed down by bank card debt and the issue of stretching her wage to cowl faculty tuition for her daughter, Sadie, now 14.
The pair had been residing in Manhattan for over a decade, most lately subletting a two-bedroom in Harlem, the place they struggled with a rat infestation. Because the median residence worth within the borough climbed over $1 million, a purchase order felt more and more out of attain.
“The considered having to avoid wasting $200,000 to place a down fee on a million-dollar residence — it felt like it could solely occur if I gained the lottery,” Ms. Edwards, 38, mentioned.
However when the pandemic hit, she received a job with Yahoo as an editor and author. The wholesome signing bonus allowed her to drag herself out of debt, and he or she started to tuck cash away because the lockdown stretched on.
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Across the identical time, fed up with the rat state of affairs, she reached out to George Hermann, a dealer with Oxford Property Group and a household pal, who inspired her to look past Harlem. Yahoo’s workplaces are in Decrease Manhattan, however when the corporate introduced that employees might keep distant indefinitely, her considerations a few prolonged commute had been lifted.
She turned her sights to Riverdale, the leafy Bronx enclave the place residence costs are lower than half of these in Harlem. (In October, the median sale worth was $410,000, in response to the New York State Affiliation of Realtors.)
“Most individuals in Manhattan don’t even know there’s northern Manhattan, and when you get above the George Washington Bridge, most individuals don’t know there’s something up there in any respect,” Mr. Hermann mentioned.
Having grown up within the Bronx, Ms. Edwards was nicely conscious of it. After years of residing in Manhattan, Riverdale appeared a little bit “too removed from the combo,” she mentioned. However Sadie’s faculty was there, and it out of the blue appeared like the best choice.
“I had by no means truly thought-about Riverdale, however I used to be kind of in a determined second,” she mentioned. “And after I went to go look, I discovered there have been truly good residences up there, and I might get what I wanted and never spend 1,000,000 {dollars}.”
She set her finances at round $350,000, hoping for 2 generously sized bedrooms, good closet house and an elevator.
Among the many houses she thought-about, all inside a five-minute drive of Sadie’s faculty:
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