September 2005 >> return to MAI in the news
A Horse Farmer Takes Manhattan With Our Help
By Joyce Cohen
HIGLIGHTED AGENT:
Isabel Millot
Licensed Real Estate Salesperson
Tel: 212.847.0607
Fax: 212.489.6170
imillot@manhattanapts.com
AS the eldest of four children, Henry Decker was starting to worry he would inherit a horse farm.
That's where he grew up - on a horse farm near Dover, Del., where his parents had a side business raising thoroughbreds and running a boarding stable.
"I had this fear they weren't going to ever get rid of it, and what would I do then?" said Mr. Decker, 32, who is known as H. J. "I live in Manhattan. I am no longer on the track to become a horse farmer."
Mr. Decker, a financial analyst, moved to New York three years ago, after earning an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He lived with a girlfriend in her Murray Hill high-rise until they broke up. So he found a roommate share on the Craigslist Web site, paying $1,700 for his half of a big two-bedroom in the West Village.
Back in Delaware, the value of the 60-acre Hartsfield Farm was soaring, and developers were badgering his father, Henry James Decker, who was nearing retirement.
Last spring, his parents sold to real estate developers for almost $2 million. "I hate to abandon all this, but we just don't have it in us any more to fix fences and mow pastures," the senior Mr. Decker said. And he was glad to use the windfall to help his children, all of whom he urged to buy homes.
"I was sort of reluctant given that prices had gone up so much, but my father talked me into it," said Mr. Decker, whose father would co-own the apartment and provide half the down payment.
So, with a budget of $500,000 to $600,000, Mr. Decker went on the hunt for a one-bedroom apartment in the West Village, preferably west of Eighth Avenue. Many streets there allow parking from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. - ideal for his reverse commute to Westchester. He would return just at the right time, park his car, and leave so early the next morning that his colleagues commented on how he was always the first one in the office.
Last winter, he visited a small ground-floor condominium on West 10th Street, listed at $540,000. He wasn't ready to buy, because the sale of the farm wasn't completed, but he liked the agent, Isabel Millot of Manhattan Apartments, Inc. She warned him that many co-ops would frown upon his plans for a co-owner and his outstanding loans from graduate school.
Apartments in his price range all seemed small or oddly laid out. Mr. Decker hated railroad apartments - "trains, I think they call them," he said. "I'd go into a place listed at $550,000 and go: 'No, God, I can't do this. I am willing to spend $550,000, but not on this.'"
But he did like one Horatio Street co-op, a "pseudo studio" with French doors dividing the room. The listing price was $565,000, but he offered $595,000, which was turned down.
The West Village, he realized, was too expensive, with co-ops priced at around $1,000 a square foot. But Chelsea, about 10 percent cheaper, was close enough. So Ms. Millot took him there.
He bid again, this time on a real one-bedroom on West 22nd Street. The listing price was $525,000. He offered $562,000 and was again turned down. He suspected the competition offered all cash.
"I really loved the apartment," he said. "That one took an emotional toll on me." Would he always fall short? "You're like, man, I have a decent job and went to grad school. You start to question life choices, feeling a little inadequate when you thought you were doing O.K."
One spring weekend, a college friend, Trey Keisler, was visiting. Mr. Keisler was about to buy a house of his own - a two-story, four-bedroom colonial in Salem, Va., with views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, for $354,000. So he was eager to go looking with Mr. Decker in Manhattan.
One apartment they saw, a one-bedroom where the living room was more like an entry hall, was "tight and cramped," Mr. Keisler said. But another one they saw was great, with high ceilings, a new kitchen and an asking price of $585,000.
"The price kind of threw me off," Mr. Keisler said. "I said, 'How in the world do you afford to live up here?' I am in a different ballgame. I am married with two kids."
Mr. Keisler was fascinated by the laundry setup. He had never seen a combined washer-dryer unit, nor had he ever seen a kitchen with a laundry in it. He himself had specifically wanted a house with laundry on the second floor, to avoid having to go downstairs to do laundry.
The apartment had "nothing really odd about it," Mr. Decker said. And 23rd Street, a commercial thoroughfare, seemed the ultimate in convenience, with a bar and a restaurant downstairs. The next block had the right kind of parking restrictions. Mr. Decker's offer of $579,000 was accepted. Common charges and taxes are around $900 a month.
Then, two weeks before closing, he received a letter from the seller's lawyer, suggesting the building might sell its air rights and the closing might be delayed because of related financial issues.
"I was flipping out," Mr. Decker said. "I'm like, 'What's air rights?' I was calling friends saying, 'Hey, buddy, do you mind if I stay in your place for a week or two because I have no place to go?' It's kind of degrading. I'm over 30. I don't need to be sleeping on friends' couches anymore. I thought I was doing well in life - but I'm a bum."
Under scrutiny, the air-rights issue fizzled out. Relieved, Mr. Decker moved to his new home in midsummer. The one downside: that convenient thoroughfare came with plenty of noise. The M23 bus, which stops right outside, squeals when it brakes and beeps when it kneels. He started sleeping with earplugs.
Now, he's furnishing his first real apartment. "This is my first real couch," he said. "I've owned couches but they were always hand-me-downs from my roommates. I went out and bought a brand-new couch. It's the first time I've ever done that."
The parking situation, once ideal, has also changed. Mr. Decker just left his job in Westchester for a new job in Midtown. He takes the subway, so now he's saddled with a 10-year-old Nissan Maxima and no good place to keep it. He is garaging it temporarily and plans to donate it to the American Diabetes Association. It will be the first time he's ever been without a car.