Sabrina Banta
Appeared in The Hunt: Sept. 7, 2014
From a Starter Co-op to a Condo With “New Energy”
Both of Sabrina Banta’s parents were real estate agents in her native Hawaii, so she felt confident in 2014 when she bought her first place, an HDFC studio co-op in a 20-unit building in Chelsea, with her parents’ help. She was just 21, and the $294,000 purchase “set forth a path of investing in real estate and getting me to the place I am now,” Ms. Banta said.
Buying a co-op at such a young age was tough. She had to submit paperwork to the board — including references from employers. “I was just getting my first job, and here I was asking people to write letters,” she said. Her first task was gaining board approval to remove the sleeping loft.
Eight years later, selling the co-op was tough, too. It took 15 months, and the board rejected her first applicant. She lowered the price from $399,000, and it finally sold for $360,000. Qualified buyers had a lot of restrictions, as is common in HDFC co-ops: an income ceiling of $54,000 annually and a 50 percent down payment, among other things.
Meanwhile, the low cost of her housing helped make a reality of her dream — owning a boutique hotel. Six years ago, Ms. Banta and her then-boyfriend spent $195,000 to buy a remote hunting cabin in the Catskills. They renovated, redecorated and transformed it into an Airbnb that promoted unique experiences, like walking a local alpaca. They sold it two and a half years later for $500,000. “It was a labor of love and a proof of concept,” Ms. Banta said.
For her next home, Ms. Banta — now 32 and a freelancer for a photo agency — wanted fewer co-op restrictions and a different neighborhood. “It felt like moving into new energy,” she said. So two years ago, she bought a one-bedroom condo in a new 24-unit building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for $775,000.
This time, she said, “I felt way more equipped to buy a place — what I was looking for and how to negotiate. My apartment was a sponsor unit, so I was able to negotiate a lot.” She has a city view, a washer-dryer and a roof deck, too.
Back in 2014, being a first-time buyer came with a “huge learning curve, and I am grateful to have had that experience,” she said.
Sara Grace Cast and Dan Cast
Appeared in The Hunt: April 24, 2016
It Takes Years to Transform a Rowhouse
Nine years ago, when their daughter was a year old, Sara Grace Cast and Dan Cast bought a two-story rowhouse in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, for $449,000, after renting in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.
The first “wow moment,” Mr. Cast said, involved trash and recycling. No longer was there a building super to deal with such things.
“I never realized how much time I was going to spend thinking about sanitation,” said Mr. Cast, 53. “We are now very much involved with the scheduling. Getting rid of garbage is important if your house is not very large.”
They also learned about lines of credit, which they used when they began renovations. The couple got a home-equity loan at a variable rate, rather than a fixed rate. “I didn’t know there was a fixed-rate version,” Ms. Cast, 47, said. “Our interest rate on that has doubled and we are trying to pay it down aggressively. It is the biggest waste of money in our lives.”
Shortly after arriving, they started on the needed work — boiler, chimney and back deck.
The couple — Mr. Cast is an executive producer on a television show and Ms. Cast is a freelance writer — later added a bathroom to the first floor, created a laundry area downstairs, spruced up the kitchen and redid the front stoop, awning and door. In the upstairs bathroom, they changed the fixtures to allow for space to shampoo the dog.
After the basement flooded during a storm, they added a sump pump. “Our worst homeowner moments have been fighting the elements,” Ms. Cast said. They find themselves rarely using the bug-filled backyard.
“You realize there is no one to turn to, no management or super,” Mr. Cast said. “We’re in this all by ourselves and it’s our problem alone to deal with. It can be a humbling moment.”
The couple, along with Mia, now 10, always lived in the house during renovations so they could supervise. “Renovation is a long and draining process,” Mr. Cast said. “But I feel like I needed to be there.”
Doing work slowly over time presented a surprising challenge. “Most of the really good contractors and tradesmen don’t want to come in until you are doing a $100,000 job or up,” Ms. Cast said. “So if you have a small project, it is hard to find good people and get someone with the right skill set.” Over the course of about five years, their renovations totaled around $200,000.
But now, “we love our house and are willing to live with the rough edges rather than devote more of our time and attention to renovation,” Ms. Cast said. “So we will wait until something major breaks before we do anything else.”
Jenny Lane
Appeared in The Hunt: Nov. 18, 2021
A Home Can “Teach You What Belongs Where”
Jenny Lane and her son, Maxwell, had been living in a 676-square-foot alcove studio when Ms. Lane bought a two-bedroom co-op on the Upper East Side in 2021. As soon as she closed, she rushed to furnish it.
She learned a hard lesson when she bought a unique burgundy-velvet curved couch with an etched wooden base. She fell for its Art Deco grandeur. “It was singing to me, this exquisite piece,” she said.
It hit a sour note in her living room. “It could not have been more wrong for my space,” she said. “I thought the burgundy against the chocolate walls would pop, but it was too dark and too much.” It lasted a week, replaced by a basic beige couch.
“Give yourself time for a space to teach you what belongs where,” she said. “If it is in my house, my two rules are it must be beautiful or useful.”
Ms. Lane, 42 and divorced, is a lawyer for Airbnb who works from home. She bought the place on the Upper East Side specifically to be within walking distance of the Dalton School, where Maxi has just finished the third grade. The school is 27 minutes away on foot.
“I was optimistic that we were going to have grand strolls to school and philosophical discussions about the issues of the day,” said Ms. Lane. But almost always, they take an Uber, which gives Maxi more time to sleep in.
In a co-op, Ms. Lane said, “you aren’t just buying a space. You are investing in a community.”
In the elevator, she and Maxi greet their fellow riders. She coined a neologism: “commutity”: a mix of commute and community. “They are the people you see in transit and yet they mean something to you and you care about each other,” she said. “There is an energy of warmth and conviviality.”
She had dreamed of an unlikely building amenity — a pool. But now Maxi goes to summer day camp, where there is plenty of swimming. And he helps in the laundry room, which does more than get the clothes clean.
“The times that I have chance chats with my neighbors are in the elevator and the laundry room,” Ms. Lane said. “Maxi has graduated from watching the laundry rotate to turning it into a basketball. He will open the top row of dryers and shoot a three like Steph Curry.”
Elizabeth Denlinger and Joy Ladin
Appeared in The Hunt: April 6, 2023
A Feeling of Stability, Even When Problems Arise
As a longtime New Yorker who gave up a rent-stabilized studio for a one-bedroom co-op with her wife, Elizabeth Denlinger found that “the big difference between renting and owning is that I feel much more secure.”
A decade ago, Ms. Denlinger, a curator at the New York Public Library, married Joy Ladin, the first openly transgender professor at Yeshiva University. At the time, Ms. Ladin, who suffers from myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, was living in Western Massachusetts and stayed there until the couple bought the Hudson Heights co-op in 2023 for $350,000.
Now, Ms. Denlinger pays the mortgage and Ms. Ladin pays the maintenance. “I don’t have this figure of the landlord in the background,” Ms. Denlinger said. “I had a really good landlord. She was a mensch, but all the same, the place was not mine. I feel more adult, which is ridiculous because I turned 60 last year.”
When the couple bought the apartment, which lacked the prewar details they’d been hoping for, it was in part because the inspector had found no major problems. But now the two face an odd situation: Their building, in hilly Upper Manhattan, shares a crumbling retaining wall with the building behind it. Nothing has yet been done to fix the wall, and they fear that repairs would mean removal of the many adjacent trees.
“The crumbling part is on the other end of the building, so we are less worried than we could be,” Ms. Denlinger said. “Joy is pretty much housebound, and it is the only bit of nature she has easy access to. There is quite a bit of bird drama.”
They still want to update the kitchen, but “it’s hard to make it happen when you can’t leave,” Ms. Ladin, 64, said. “The kitchen is livable and functional, but we wish the cupboards would close all the way.”
Although they just celebrated their 10-year anniversary, “only when we moved in here did we start living together,” Ms. Ladin said. “I hear that can go in different directions.”
Mia Sinclair Jenness
Appeared in The Hunt: Feb. 20, 2025
Managing a Renovation: Patience, Patience
Mere days before Mia Sinclair Jenness was scheduled to close on her studio co-op in Manhattan, the elderly seller died. Suddenly, she had to buy the apartment from the seller’s estate.
Ms. Jenness, 19, who has been acting professionally since age 5, ended up negotiating a prepossession agreement, where she paid the monthly maintenance and lived in her new Hell’s Kitchen home for six months before actually closing. She furnished it temporarily with pieces she collected from her neighborhood Buy Nothing group.
The rundown studio needed plenty of work — new floors, new bathroom, new kitchen. She reminded herself to be calm and cordial, and to surround herself with people — her agent, her lawyer, her mother — who would help her jump through endless hoops.
As soon as the deal was done (she paid $342,600), Ms. Jenness began renovations. “I had so many months to think about what I wanted to do, and also had time to live in the space to figure out what I needed and didn’t need,” she said.
When she bought it, the studio had been carved into three spaces with makeshift walls. After conferring with several contractors, she was surprised to find that estimates varied from about $85,000 to $100,000. “Cheaper does not always equal better,” she said. “My mom always says: Do it right or do it twice.” During the renovation — which also added a loft — she stayed in a long-term hotel in Midtown.
With construction, she learned, “the timeline won’t be accurate. Things change on a day-to-day basis.” She even acquired a new vocabulary word — fandelier. She has two.
“I’m glad I was as hands-on as I was in terms of picking the tiling and paint colors, and how low I wanted my kitchen pendants to hang,” she said. “A half inch makes all the difference.”
But she didn’t quite think of everything — like the need for storage space. Currently, she throws things beneath the loft stairs, but plans to turn that space into a recording studio. (She does voice work for animated shows and sometimes auditions from home). She is contemplating shelves and closets. The high ceilings were a plus when she bought the place, but she still sometimes hits her head in the loft.
“I really love the apartment,” Ms. Jenness said. “I didn’t have to go through with it if I didn’t want to, but I did. Knowing this was ultimately going to be right for me ultimately got me through.”
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