*Lyrics from Hold On by Róisín O from their 2012 album, The Secret Life of Blue. I heard this song (easily the best from the album) in an Irish independent movie called The O’Briens, but I can’t recall if the movie was worth watching (watch at your own risk, but I recall thinking it was sweet, if predictable). At any rate, her voice is very pretty. And, for serious, the song lyrics are kind of right fucking on. This MIGHT be your life. Or, rather, my life.

The views of the city skyline are one of the best features of this neighborhood.

Ok, well, sigh.

Here’s the thing: we’re no closer to finding an apartment to call our own than we were a year ago. The Brooklyn housing market, as I mentioned before, is crazy, but not regular crazy… it’s the kind of crazy that get articles written about it, that confounds (and, alternately delights) seasoned real estate professionals, and that create a sellers’ market of the sellers’ dreams (ten offers per apartment, please!). At any rate, over the past several weeks we did put in offers on a couple of places, and were promptly overbid. Like, by a lot. The price-per-square-foot is outrageous (some of that is city sticker shock) and steadily rising, but add that to the feeding frenzy of record low inventory, and you get bidding wars that are taking the prices anywhere from 4% to upwards of 13% over asking (asking price means very little right now). All of this is to say, we’re not comfortable buying (or attempting to buy) at the top of what we perceive as a real estate bubble (not to mention that we don’t have the buying power that many of our competitors seemingly have).

A friend posted this to instagram. Yep, says it all.

If the market subsides (which all indications say it won’t for some time), we’ll reconsider our position, but for now, we’re tabling the issue. Which really sucks. We might consider trying to find a larger rental apartment, but with summer on the horizon, we’re reluctant to give up our (very rare and private) roof access when there isn’t much public green space/park space to enjoy in the neighborhood. Our location is great for lots of reasons – proximity to Jeff’s office, restaurants, parking, etc – so, for now, we’re going to stay put.

Perks of this location: lovely private outdoor access, and easy walking access to a fantastic bridge.

We’re both incredibly disappointed, and discouraged, but we’re trying to focus on the good things, and to focus on the things that we can control. Jeff’s office rent is going up by a lot (another side effect of the heightened real estate market is skyrocketing rents, which is a whole other topic that negatively affects the less affluent members of the community, pushing them farther and farther from their home neighborhoods, and creates, to put it politely, an imbalanced residential popluation), so it’s a good time for us to tighten our belts, so to speak, and for him to refocus on his business.

But, because we’re staying, I think we’ll do a few little spruce ups here and there, which I’ll of course share with you. If you’re still out there. I can’t say I’ll be posting with any regularity. I’ve always liked to provide original content, and with very little left to do here (and with our hands tied by being renters, not owners) I might just share the occasional update.

Little updates in the form of fresh flowers, art, or lovely moments of life may be all the blog becomes for a while.

Please keep following me on instagram – it seems that even though I don’t have much design work going on, at least I try to find something cool to shoot and share regularly.

Thanks for all the encouragement along the way, friends. It’s nice to have people rooting for you even when nothing seems to be going your way.

Until we move on to another space, this is what we have to work with. It’ll have to do, pig.

xoxo