Our Search for a Single-Family Home in Brooklyn

"Yes we can!"

Home Buying Checklist

:: Since Rachel and I are just starting to think about buying a home, right now we aren’t sure what things we should be considering.  There are general questions that we will have to ask ourselves (e.g. do we need to live in a neighborhood that is great now or is it ok if we think the neighborhood will improve in the next 3 years?) and questions that we will have to ask others (e.g. how difficult/expensive is it to install central heating or air if it is not already available?).  Before we get into the weeds, here is a general checklist of what we are looking for:

  • A single family home (e.g. brownstone, townhouse, etc)
  • No more than a 10 minute walk from a subway station
  • Less than 45 minute subway ride to Times Sq (1 transfer ok)
  • Cost should be between $600,000 and $700,000 (all in)

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Brooklyn Neighborhood List

:: Since neither Rachel or I are from New York, there are a lot of neighborhoods in Brooklyn that we don’t know about, so to be fair, I think we will have to at least consider all of them (except for a few that are easy to cross off).


Northwestern Brooklyn

Boerum Hill 

Carroll Gardens

Cobble Hill

Brooklyn Heights

Brooklyn Navy Yard Commercial property only

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Thanks to a little e-detectivery, we were able to narrow down our house hunting search to a manageable eight neighborhoods.  We got the numbers from the US Census (“We can’t move forward until you mail it back!”), Brooklyn.com, Trulia, and Zillow (picture courtesy of NewYorkPhotography.com).

Thanks to a little e-detectivery, we were able to narrow down our house hunting search to a manageable eight neighborhoods.  We got the numbers from the US Census (“We can’t move forward until you mail it back!”), Brooklyn.com, Trulia, and Zillow (picture courtesy of NewYorkPhotography.com).