Although a local of Chicago, Religion Pennick considers herself a New Yorker. She lived within the metropolis on and off for 20 years, renting in several Brooklyn neighborhoods.
“I used to be unable to buy an residence in Brooklyn through the Nineties,” mentioned Ms. Pennick, 56, who had pupil mortgage debt after incomes levels from the College of Michigan and New York College. “If I had completed that, I’d be sitting fairly proper now. I do know I’ve to recover from that, however I in all probability by no means will.”
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Ms. Pennick, who’s a filmmaker and author — her ebook concerning 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 firstly of the pandemic, Ms. Pennick returned to Chicago and lived along with her mom. She landed a job and saved diligently for a down cost, at all times planning to return to New York. “This metropolis is the place the place I could be my genuine self,” she mentioned. “Plus, my associates and church house are right here. I’m of the ‘New York or nowhere’ ilk.”
She knew she couldn’t hunt from afar. “The way in which one thing seems on Zoom and FaceTime is just not 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 associates — a pair from her church in Fort Greene, Brooklyn — who had an additional bed room. In her value vary of $200,000 to $300,000, she wished 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 of the Bronx, however couldn’t discover a appropriate place near a subway station, which was a precedence. Anyway, the Bronx was removed from associates, church and work. So she targeted on central Brooklyn, which had extra subway choices.
Ms. Pennick couldn’t afford to place greater than 10 p.c down, which she knew restricted her choices. (And she or he wasn’t eligible for first-time homebuyer applications, which she known as “ridiculously inflexible and unrealistic with their revenue cutoffs.”) She was referred to Natalie McCormack Richards, an unbiased dealer, who steered her away from co-ops requiring 20 p.c.
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