Apartment Shopping: The New Bargain?

Hello my monkeys. The Guerilla realizes that she has been relatively quiet on the shopping front. Reasons being: The economy stinks, January and February are not top shopping months, I have bought more stuff than ever in my life during the past year, I need to lose weight from the holidays (which seemed to have started in September this year), and I have been hunting like Dick Cheney for real estate. This has reduced the time I have available for other kinds of shopping and it makes me feel the need to save every penny I earn just in case the perfect pad pops up. I even got pre-approved for a mortgage via Wells Fargo already.

Although I did buy one of those DVD/VCR combo players the other day at Best Buy - it's Samsung and seems to do the trick.

Anyway, I have been spending weekends either going to appointments with real estate brokers or visiting open houses. Today I have a plan to see about 5-6 apartments. So while I have been seeing a better grade of apartment (they are all co-ops, by the way), and the prices are coming down, the cost to own in this town is still outrageous (and all smaller than the place I already live in). So my mental dilemma is: should I bite the bullet and buy something so that I can call myself a homeowner? Or do I continue on the plan I had in mind last year - pimp my rent stabilized apartment as though it were mine? I continue to waiver between these options.

Regardless, I am not buying a thing before March. Winter is a crappy time of year for real estate as it is, so I am hoping that my tenacity, no matter what the weather, will help me to more possibly become a homeowner for less. And in doing her research, Mother Guerilla discovered some articles that remind us that during the last 4-5 years, the real estate market shot up to levels that can't possibly be sustained under the current economic circumstances. I mean just since 2004 the prices of one bedrooms have gone up 60-100 percent! No other investment that I can think of even comes close to that kind of return. So, please, sellers -- either you have to accept a smaller return on your money or you may have to accept the fact that you bought at the top of an unsupportable real estate market and got swindled.

Either way, remember I am a buyer who has a mortgage at the ready. You want my money? Here it is...see it? Snap!

p.s. To sellers and their brokers. If you claim your apartment is in "mint+++ condition," please make sure that it is - for everyone's own good. An apartment with a tiny kitchen that has no dishwasher and only two stove top burners and no oven (save a convection oven-microwave) does not a "mint +++" apartment make. And lower that price! You are never going to sell.