She Searched the East Side of Manhattan With a $625,000 Budget. Which Apartment Would You Choose?

As a child growing up in Rego Park, Queens, Allison Small would gaze toward Manhattan and dream of owning a home there. Later, during college at Binghamton University and law school at Hofstra, the dream persisted.

“Every time I would drive over the Whitestone Bridge,” she said, “I’d turn toward the city skyline and say, ‘One day.’”

A few years ago, Ms. Small, now 34, moved into a Yorkville rental, paying $2,400 for a one-bedroom in a walk-up building. The subway commute to her office in the financial district — she works in human resources for a bank — was 45 minutes, an improvement over the 90-minute commute via two subways from her previous Queens apartment.

Last year, she got serious about buying a place and started looking at areas not too far north on the East Side. But with a budget of up to $550,000 for a co-op, she found she could afford no more than a tiny studio.

“I didn’t want to put down that kind of money if I wasn’t in love with the place,” she said.

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Then, to her surprise, Ms. Small’s grandmother left her an inheritance, and she was able to raise her budget to $625,000. “I was her only grandchild,” she said. “She knew I wanted to buy a place.”

With her new limit set, she contacted Joshua S. Garay, at Garay Real Estate, for help. “For a nice alcove studio, Allison was in the right price point,” Mr. Garay said.

He suggested apartments near Beekman Place, in the East 50s, but Ms. Small found the surroundings too commercial. An available one-bedroom there — a full 800 square feet for $500,000, with monthly maintenance of around $1,500 — was on a low floor, dim and dungeon-like even with the lights on. They headed south.

“We could walk into an apartment and Josh could tell me how much I would pay to renovate it,” said Ms. Small, who wanted a place in move-in condition. “In a couple of locations, I got turned off by the fact the seller’s broker would talk only to him and not to me. In a few cases, they thought we were a couple.”

Among her options:

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