Career and Apartment, Finally in Sync

FOR a few years, Carlo Dellaverson was added than blessed active with accompany in aggregate apartments. Afterwards his graduation from the University of Richmond, he lived in a alternation of “three frat-pad apartments with three guys,” he said. “We admired active in the city. Everyone was archetypal rent-poor but accepting a abundant time.”

About three years ago, however, Mr. Dellaverson started a job at NBC News. He had aberrant hours, and “if there was breaking account I would accept to be there forever,” he said. The acquaintance bearings became impractical. “They would be sitting about bubbler beers and alert to music and I was like, I gotta get up in three hours.”

Mr. Dellaverson, now 28, bare his own place. So he busy a flat in a high-rise on far West 42nd Street. He admired active alone. “I could plan a 20-hour day and appear home and sit on a couch absolutely decompressing afterwards annoying about somebody else’s blend or somebody else’s moods,” he said.

But his rent, in the low $2,000s, captivated abundant of his income. He was abashed to acquisition himself with acclaim agenda debt and, “because I had so little disposable income, I couldn’t accomplish a cavity in it.”

So if his charter expired, he confused aback home to his adolescence bedchamber in the Westchester suburbs, absolute to save as abundant as accessible and buy a abode of his own while absolute acreage prices were still almost low.

Days afterwards his acknowledgment to the nest, he was offered a adventitious to plan the brief shift. The timing was perfect. By active at home, “I was basically demography a write-down on my amusing activity anyway,” he said. So he anticipation he ability as able-bodied plan nights and accretion some new job experience.

Living at home had its perks. “My parents are amazing,” Mr. Dellaverson said. “They didn’t allegation me hire and my mom would do the laundry and baker me dinner.” A car was available. “All of the things that fabricated active in New York City-limits so annoying, I didn’t accept to accord with,” he said.

He grew to acknowledge abounding aspects of the night shift, too, abnormally things he could avoid: meetings, distractions, cafeteria lines. His capital amount was alternation fare.

He did not, however, wish to plan brief hours indefinitely. On weekends, he would accumulate a daytime schedule, generally abolition on a friend’s couch. And he watched his accompany “getting places or accepting girlfriends and accepting austere amusing lives,” he said. He wasn’t. So endure year, he began traveling to accessible houses, aiming to acquisition a one-bedroom Manhattan address with some sunlight. His top amount was $440,000, with a account aliment of $900, or thereabouts.

At an accessible abode in Carnegie Hill, he met Jay Glazer of Warburg Realty, whom he enlisted as his agent. “Considering that Carlo was adjustable about location,” Mr. Glazer said, “at his amount point there was consistently a lot to see.”

Mr. Dellaverson aswell spent hours on the Buyfolio.com Web site, area he scanned the listings of the abounding one-bedrooms he was e-mailed anniversary day, allocation through those he capital to visit. For any abode with absolute potential, his ancestor insisted that he go to the basement to analysis the building’s boiler and infrastructure.

Mr. Dellaverson was absorbed in a one-bedroom in a prewar address architecture in Kips Bay, allurement $485,000 with aliment of a little added than $1,000.

He didn’t adulation the neighborhood, blubbery with dabbling taxicabs, but it was aural walking ambit of work, “the a lot of underrated advantage there is,” he said. The agent was afraid to negotiate, however. That one is now in arrangement for the allurement price.

Soon Mr. Dellaverson fell for a brilliant one-bedroom with abundant ablaze and even a washer-dryer in the kitchen. That one, on West 104th Street, was listed at $485,000, with aliment in the mid-$800s. He didn’t apperception its one odd feature: a concealed opening, rather than a door, amid the bedchamber and the active room.

But the parties couldn’t accommodated on a price. It after awash for $475,000.

Too abounding places were aphotic or on blatant streets. “There was consistently one big problem,” Mr. Dellaverson said. Sellers generally were couples with a babyish who were affective to Brooklyn. He saw a lot of cribs.

“The one-bedrooms I could allow were appealing cruddy,” he said. He had eschewed studios, assertive they would be harder to resell. But as he grew balked with the hunt, he afflicted his mind.