Author: Brett

After a “luxurious” Saturday of apartment-hunting in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we loaded the wee ones into the car on Sunday and drove Northward to The Bronx.

Riverdale is a Northern Bronx neighborhood which looks suspiciously like a Westchester suburb (minus the outrageous property taxes). Wooded and green with winding streets, Riverdale’s many apartment buildings line the Henry Hudson Parkway, which, surprisingly, feels more like a Central Park cross-street near the off-ramp areas than a major thoroughfare. There are single-family homes in Riverdale, but they are mostly out of our price range (above 750k) and those in our grasp appear to need some serious fixin’. Since we are pretty desperate to move into our own place at this point and can’t safely renovate for the next couple of years, we need a place in good shape. So, for this trip, we stuck to looking at apartments.

Riverdale is a formerly sleepy area which has seen massive (mostly unwelcome) growth in the past few years. The most recent behemoth is the Solaria, with prices starting at $915k for a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit. Needless to say, that was beyond our “measly” budget of low 700s.

We saw 3 apartments on our first trip. The first two were in The Waterford, one of the newer condos in Riverdale. The Waterford sits on Waldo Avenue, a quiet, hilly street lined with both single-family houses and apartment buildings, and overlooks the streets below. Down the block is a row of shops—a deli, pizzeria, and drugstore. As with many apartment buildings in the nabe, The Waterford rents its lower floor to a preschool.

At first glance, the building looked amazing. There is a part-time doorman, but at all other times, a sophisticated new security system allows residents to punch in a code and let themselves in—no fumbling with keys. A video monitor allows residents to see any arriving guests. The realtor showed us a brand-spanking new wood-paneled common room where an actual resident sat drinking coffee, laptop stretched across his legs. The building also featured a party room, indoor parking, a workout room with a flat screen and DVD player, and a basement storage closet for each unit—all at no additional charge.

The first unit of the two available in the building was on the second floor and was one of the only apartments without a balcony. This unit was offered by the building; it was the only one not to have been sold in the initial offering in 2006. Once we took a look inside, we could see why. The living room and master bedroom faced the playground for the preschool. The realtor assured us that the kids were all gone by 2pm each day, but who really wants to risk accidental indecent exposure? A look at a furnished unit on the 5th floor gave us a glimpse of the true size of the place as this apartment was being sold by the tenant. This owner barely had any furniture either and had most items lined up neatly on the floor against the wall. What was it with these new apartments anyway? Is furniture-free living the new trend? Makes one wonder whether California Closets isn’t somehow brainwashing the masses….

It was at this point that the realtor dropped the bombshell on us. Turns out that those “free” building perks were not actually free. The quoted monthly maintenance fee of $686 had recently been raised to a whopping $950 ($925 for the 2nd Fl. apartment)! As we stood there aghast, the agent hastily crossed out the printed figure and scribbled in the new one. I guess the big shots-that-be figured out why other buildings charge extra for everything. At any rate, the units were now out of our price range. Once again, we wasted our time looking at something that was incorrectly (read: falsely) represented. We could only wonder what was in store for us in the next building…