Love at First Site: Buying the First Unit You See

Feb. 16, 2015 — Apartment hunting in New York requires a methodical touch. You want to get a feel for what's out there, but you want, and need, to move fast. In a city as crowded as this, someone else can snap up the unit of your dreams from right under you. How can you stop that from happening? After all, you don't want to take the first apartment you see, right? Or do you? If you like it enough, then why not? An increasing number of co-op and condo buyers are seizing the day and buying the first apartments they see, according to The Daily News, in so-called "one-and-done" deals. "It’s the real estate equivalent of marrying the first guy you meet in a bar," says the report, adding, "Call them impulsive or foolhardy, but as inventory hovers at record lows, these devil-may-care purchasers are beating their rivals to the punch — and reaping the rewards." Fair enough. Before you seal the deal in ink, however, the article does caution potential buyers to do their research first: "A tall finance executive [fell hard for a] loft on the Upper West Side a few years ago [and] didn’t bother to explore the upstairs landing. When he came back to walk through the apartment before the closing, he discovered that the ceiling was so low that he couldn’t stand up straight. It was too late to back out of the deal." And that's got to suck.