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Katherine Marks for The New York Times<\/p>\nSeveral years ago, Robin Clayton was renting a studio in a TriBeCa condominium when a friend in Brooklyn invited her to housesit in Fort Greene for a few weeks. Before long, Ms. Clayton had fallen for the neighborhood, with its tree-lined brownstone streets and neighborly vibe.<\/p>\n
She checked out different spots for her morning coffee and greeted dogs walking through Fort Greene Park, which she found to be \u201ca central fixture that the neighborhood circles around.\u201d When her lease expired in Manhattan, Ms. Clayton knew she wanted to relocate close to the park, and landed a few blocks away in a high-rise rental building in Downtown Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin a month, I really assimilated and got three new pairs of Birkenstocks and a dog,\u201d she said. She and Jackson, her mini Australian shepherd, walked to the park every day.<\/p>\n
But she didn\u2019t love the apartment, which had an awkward trapezoidal shape. Meanwhile, she watched Brooklyn Tower \u2014 with both rental and condo units \u2014 rising nearby on Flatbush Avenue. With 92 stories, it\u2019s the tallest building in Brooklyn, connected to the historic Dime Savings Bank. So she rented a one-bedroom there, paying $5,510 a month.<\/p>\n
Ms. Clayton, who\u2019s from the Boston suburbs, had moved often for her job in tech consulting, with stints in Dallas, Washington, D.C., Boston and finally New York. She traveled often, too \u2014 once with a hotel stay so lengthy that the concierge commented on her new haircut.<\/p>\n
Now 40, she was intent on buying a condo unit in a neighborhood near Fort Greene Park. \u201cI can\u2019t go to the park without seeing someone I know, stopping by your blanket to chat,\u201d she said. She wanted plenty of subway options, mostly for her commute to an office near Bryant Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoving every few years can be taxing,\u201d she said. \u201cI wish I could have taken my rent and thrown it toward a mortgage. I didn\u2019t want to be transient anymore. I think timing is really important, and the timing was right.\u201d<\/p>\n
She aimed for as much space as was realistic, her own washer-dryer and plenty of natural light, in part for her many potted plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cSunlight is something you can\u2019t really manufacture,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can build in a lot of new things but you can\u2019t build in new sunlight.\u201d She aimed to keep her budget to about $1 million, and thought $1.25 million was reasonable for a one-bedroom, though she was prepared to go higher for the right place. She cared little about amenities, except for a dog run.<\/p>\n
Katherine Marks for The New York Times<\/p>\n
This one-bedroom apartment, facing southeast on a high floor with sweeping views, had about 685 square feet, with three closets, picture windows, a washer-dryer in the foyer, a big bathroom with heated floors, an open living space and kitchen, and assorted smart-home features, including speakers. The 57-story building, which opened in 2020 with a lovely scalloped facade, was just south of busy Fulton Street, with its outdoor mall and proximity to a dozen subway lines. It came with multiple amenities, including an outdoor dog run. Fort Greene Park was about a seven-minute walk. The price was $1.195 million, with monthly charges in the $1,700s.<\/p>\n
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Compass<\/p>\n
Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several years ago, Robin Clayton was renting a studio in a TriBeCa condominium when a friend in Brooklyn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[79233,79234,9,11,10,56,578],"class_list":{"0":"post-199068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-downtown-brooklyn-brooklyn","9":"tag-fort-greene-brooklyn","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}