We officially unmoored ourselves from NYC in November 2023 when we sold our apartment in Riverdale, the Bronx. We bought in June 2015, so we owned it for just under 9.5 years. We spend several weeks each year in NYC, visiting multiple times a year. Our ideal travel plans have us in New York the equivalent of about two months. Believe it or not, the annual carrying cost of our apartment – HOA, taxes, insurance, utilities — would not be that much more than two months’ worth of hotel stays!
Why We Decided To Sell
The crazy expense of living in NYC was one reason we held onto our apartment, even though we hadn’t been living there full-time since 2019, when we moved to Florida for stage 2 of our FIRE journey. However, with five years of travel data under our belt, we were staying in NYC less than anticipated – and we found reasonable hotel rates in commutable areas of New Jersey.
Another big reason for keeping the co-op was to give a foothold in NYC for our kids. However, neither of them liked being in Riverdale, which is a good 90-minute commute into Manhattan.
Finally, our real estate journey was a key player in our FIRE journey (arguably the most important reason we reached our FIRE number). However, the real estate that mattered to our FIRE number was rentable real estate, and this apartment could not be rented. It was pure expense, and we were not expecting strong enough appreciation to offset the carrying costs and opportunity cost of keeping our money tied up.
The Selling Process – Do Not Go The FSBO Route!
The selling process took six months from start-to-finish. We signed with a listing agent in April 2024 and closed by October 2024. This was actually one of the faster closing timelines for our apartment complex. I had been monitoring the listings in our complex for years, and apartments where we lived took notoriously long to sell, if ever.
Co-op boards in NYC make great fodder for real estate nightmare stories with their reputations for being difficult, unpredictable and outright uncooperative with prospective sellers. In our case, our co-op’s approval process was difficult, and the buyer’s real estate agent was from outside NYC and inexperienced with the process. Luckily, our listing agent was very experienced and willing to handhold the buyer (she really should have gotten the buying agent’s fee!). Our agent was local to the neighborhood, so not only knowledgeable about co-ops in general, but particularly plugged into the Riverdale scene.
Do not attempt to sell a NYC co-op by yourself (i.e., FSBO). Since we were already living in Florida when we went to market, we couldn’t have handled the staging and the showings anyway. But even if we could, our listing agent’s back-and-forth with both the co-op board and the buyers took an enormous amount of time and patience. It was well worth the 6% commission to sidestep that fiasco.
Running The Numbers – Like Getting A 58% Rebate
In the 9.5 years that we owned, the apartment appreciated more than 65% over what we initially paid. Sounds great, except there are costs attached to owning and selling. We had renovated the kitchen and the bathroom at a cost of over $40,000. (This is NYC so that’s actually a pretty cheap renovation!). We also had closing costs and capital gains taxes (it was a secondary residence by the time we sold). Finally, we still had a mortgage balance on the property which ate into the sales proceeds.
Still, when the dust cleared, we recouped almost 58% of everything we spent on that apartment. I mean everything. I tracked not just the typical monthly holding costs (e.g., HOA, taxes, insurance, utilities), but also all capex and maintenance (from major renovations down to everyday household supplies). The sale covered almost 58% of all of our costs for living there. If we had been renting, we would have spent at least as much, if not more, and we would not have received anything back when we moved. Selling felt like getting a giant rebate check on a purchase I would have made anyway.
Lessons Learned
If we ever buy in NYC again, it will be a condo and not a co-op. There are just too many hoops for both buyer and seller when you’re dealing with the co-op approval process. Believe it or not, you can’t just transfer a co-op to a family member – some co-ops require an approval process for transferring title or even renting! However, condo flexibility comes with a price – co-ops can be up to 40% cheaper than condos.
Since we don’t plan on living in NYC full-time ever, any place we buy would ideally have the opportunity to be rented. That said, NYC has very strong tenant protections which can be difficult for mom-and-pop landlords to navigate, so we’re not buying for rental potential — it’s just an extra perk to our having a second residence. But we don’t really need that second residence, now that we have some nearby hotels that we like and trust.
I still think a NYC apartment is an amazing legacy for future generations. If we buy at a later date, I will prioritize an area the whole family loves and that will fit needs across multiple generations. I have identified some buildings and am keeping my eye on prices. Will include updates in a future post!
We are Scott and Caroline, 50-somethings who spent the first 20+ years of our adult lives in New York City, working traditional careers and raising 2 kids. We left full-time work in our mid-40’s for location-independent, part-time consulting projects and real estate investing, in order to create a more flexible and travel-centric lifestyle. 
Financial independence and early retirement is not something we originally focused on, but over time realized it was possible. Our free report, 
