Mary Elizabeth Williams can almost touch both sides of her kitchen at the same time. Still, she and her family of four love their tiny Manhattan space.
Reading about the journey of a middle-class couple as they chase after rapidly escalating home prices in New York City will leave you breathless and a little claustrophobic.
Breathless because during the run up of housing prices earlier this decade, few places could have outpaced the rapidly inflating price of homes in New York City. Claustrophobic because after all their efforts -- and yes, the family of four scores a home in the end -- the prized co-op is 800 square feet; tinier than what they were renting.
Mary Elizabeth Williams' book Gimme Shelter, which also has the mouthful of a subtitle, "Ugly houses, cruddy neighborhoods, fast-talking brokers and toxic mortgages: My three years searching for the American Dream," is a fun read despite its frustrating premise, and it will have you doing that head-shaking thing and thinking, "I'm glad I live in Chicago."
Photo by John Keefe
Williams and her husband, Jeff, started their quest for the American Dream in 2003, when their Brooklyn apartment became a little too cramped for two adults and one toddler. The kitchen and bath were "psychotically claustrophobic." Mary Elizabeth had to lean over sideways to open the oven, a move which caused her to burn herself on the hot rack.
The little apartment had a "den," where they could squeeze in a baby crib, as well as an extra area for their home office, but neither sleeping area had a regular door. As a bonus, the apartment had roaches.
Even though renting is typically what New Yorkers have done for generations, suddenly it didn't feel right.
During the housing boom, the couple realized that friends all around them were buying homes almost regardless of price. It wasn't long before they caught the bug. Plus, another baby came along.
"The mania did seize me in a way I thought I was immune to," Williams said during a phone interview. "I thought I was smarter than that. I thought I was acting completely of my own free will. I had reached a certain age and had two children and those are the things you want. But I got caught up in the fever and the fear. If everyone around you is an owner, you start thinking, I'm the only one, what have I done wrong?"
As the subtitle says, it took them three years to find a place they liked and could afford. Both of them subscribed to the "love at first sight" principle of home buying, and none of the places they could actually afford were lovable, while those they could love were not affordable. To add to the scramble, home prices seemed to leap every few months.
Even after the housing bust of this past year, New York City has some of the priciest real estate on the planet.
"Some people say, 'Well, that's what you get for living in New York City,' like there is something inherently arrogant about living here," Williams said. "But cities need regular people in them, too. We have to figure out a way for people and families to be able to live in cities. And to have middle class families in cities."
According to salary.com, the cost of living in New York City is 44.3 percent higher than in Chicago. New York City employers pay around 9 percent more than Chicago employers, leaving a big gap in real wages for typical New Yorkers.
"I did feel like New York had priced us out," she added. "But a lot of us are still here. Chicago is not cheap, but it is so much more affordable. You can have an urban lifestyle and not be in this craziness."
Jeff and Mary Elizabeth both work in writing and publishing, not the highest paying of fields, even in New York. As they started their home search their combined income was under six figures. They don't own a car and rarely go out.
All around them, home buyers were opting for no-documentation and zero down payment loans, but to Jeff and Mary Elizabeth, that sounded like crazy talk. (They are apparently ahead of their time.)
Instead, they tightened up their budget and pulled a large chunk of money from their 401Ks and their daughter's fledgling college fund for a down payment. Still they were led from one dump to another.
One, for example, listed for a "paltry $575,000" and was described as having income potential. But, Williams notes in the book, "This house needs work like Ground Zero needs work."
The upstairs rental apartment was occupied by a crazy old woman who will not come out. The bedroom walls were so water damaged they had wrinkled like laundry, the house stunk of mildew and probably other things, and there was no boiler, thus no hot water. And the final seal of disapproval: The old lady was the owner's son, and he was going to evict his own mother in order to sell the place.
Other places were nice enough but didn't have the magic. In a far-flung Brooklyn neighborhood they found a little house with three real bedrooms, lots of windows and a genuine dining room with a stained glass window. It even has a tree in the front yard -- a tree growing in Brooklyn.
"The pros outnumber the cons," she writes. "Yet the agonizing need for a list of pros and cons is, in and of itself, a big fat con. There is not a goddam thing to do in the neighborhood once you've cruised the Rite Aid."
Perhaps because she was so pregnant, they ended up walking away. Later they found out it had serious termite damage that would have cost a lot to repair.
Yet she still thinks about that house. "It was so cute and pretty and had a teeny yard. Maybe I would have grown to love that neighborhood."
The birth of their second daughter set them back in their house hunt. One can only launch so many projects at any one time. But as they returned to their quest she writes, "In the half-year we haven't been home-shopping, prices in Brooklyn have leaped in Superman-style bounds. We're never going to catch up."
New York City, along with places like California, was a bulls-eye of our nation's run on real estate since 2003. The median price of a house in New York City in 2003 was around $330,000 (adjusted for inflation) and rose to almost $500,000 in 2006. People who previously might have used reason and logic to buy now jump in without looking, purchase with leveraged dollars and trust the bubble would not burst for them.
At one point a broker calls Williams about a deal, a little house for $525,000. She writes: "In a not especially trendy Brooklyn neighborhood in 2004, you can now pay $150,000 more for a house than you would have six months ago. What will it cost six months from now?"
Finally, after three long years, they saw something close to what they wanted.
They always had figured that when they found the right place, it would cause a sudden thunderbolt of love. Upon first touring the little apartment, there was no sudden connection, no sensation that "this is the place."
They played hardball in the bidding process and secured a deal. And then, a strange thing happened.
"It doesn't matter that it wasn't a ... love-at-first-sight experience at all," writes Williams. "I know in my bones, as soon as our offer is accepted, I don't want to live anywhere else on earth."
And that was that. They passed their co-op interview, arranged financing, said goodbye to their old neighborhood, and became residents of Inwood in the northern end of Manhattan.
Now after the real estate market's worst years in many decades, she looks back on their race to own with mixed feelings.
On the one hand, she says, "I feel terrible about it. I saw the darker side of human nature -- people who kicked out tenants and didn't make basic repairs, all for a fast buck. I saw some people like me who really wanted something and were duped. This is my entertaining yarn, but what is happening in this country is extraordinarily dire and I feel furious about that."
And on the other hand, she feels like her family ended up all right.
"I'm lucky because I still get to have my home. I was very, very lucky I had a rigorous accountant and mortgage broker and I'm paranoid in general."
Remarkably, their little home in Inwood has appreciated in value despite the economic downturn. They paid $360,000 in 2006, and similar properties are listing for $409,000 and $399,000.
They pay 31 percent of their income for mortgage and maintenance, but that does not include association fees and property taxes. While most experts suggest that all principal, interest, taxes and insurance not exceed 28 percent of gross income, they also factor car payments into most budgets. Like most New Yorkers, the Williamses do not have a car.
"This was the neighborhood that had the highest rate of appreciation in New York City," she says. "It was such a steal. It's still a steal, and still the most affordable in Manhattan."
The apartment is small for four people, but she loves Inwood.
"I feel so loyal to this neighborhood and proud of where I live and invested in this community," she says. "That mortgage check I write every month is the one I don't mind writing. It's an investment, it's mine. I worked so hard for it. I had to go through so much to get here."
Kay Severinsen is editor of SearchChicago-Homes.
GIMME SHELTER
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
Simon & Schuster, 336 pages, $26
Is your home too small? Don't tell Mary Elizabeth Williams, her husband, Jeff, and their two daughters, ages 5 and 9.
In 2006, the New York couple paid $360,000 for a 800-square-foot co-op in the Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood. Divide that square footage by four people, and they average 200 square feet per person. According to a 2004 report by the Heritage Foundation, the average American has 721 feet apiece, while the average poor American has 439 square feet.
Williams actually felt lucky to get their co-op because now their daughters share a 7-by-11-foot bedroom -- with a door, unlike their alcove in the family's previous apartment.
Nevertheless, the kitchen is galley-like at 10 by 7 feet and they call their dining area the "dining gallery."
"There are times when I have literal traffic jams between the kitchen and bathroom. There's a child standing right there," says Williams, author a new book, Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching For the American Dream. "You are shimmying around all day."
How do they manage in a small space?
"I'm really insane about purging and picking up the clutter," she explains. "And I have an obsession with the Container Store."
Since floor space is limited, she favors storage containers that go up -- tall bookcases and lots of shelves. It also helps to be very meticulous about the items that come into the home.
"That's how most people in the world live," she says. "When you think about it, 3,000 square feet is kind of ridiculous. I like being really zen. The things I have I really love."
For instance, she has a shoe rack that holds 12 pairs. "That's how many I have," she says. "I'm not going to have more. That's my life. It's a no brainer."
While keeping clutter down can be especially difficult with children around, they have made it work. "My daughters don't get a new toy until we give one toy away."
She also likes the fact that her children are within earshot at all times. "The practicality of staying here with kids when they are bigger kind of freaks me out," she says. "But for the foreseeable future, the idea of moving -- noooo!"
