Gianna Llewellyn has come a great distance since she moved to New York Metropolis on her twenty second birthday. It was 2019, and he or she was a school graduate from Lengthy Island with hopes of changing into a movie director or tattoo artist.
“I used to be simply any job that will give me some freedom and let me have blue hair,” she stated.
Her first job, operating errands on a horror film set, got here from a Fb publish. That was adopted by manufacturing gigs on TV exhibits like “Legislation & Order.” She liked the condo she shared in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with two roommates, however her meager pay and $850 hire left her “value unfavorable {dollars},” she stated.
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“I used to be consuming Nutella sandwiches for a 12 months,” stated Ms. Llewellyn, 28, now a contract digital camera assistant.
Her perseverance paid off: By 2023, she had saved $80,000. Curious how she might afford a house within the metropolis, Ms. Llewellyn looked for first-time homebuyer applications on-line and located a authorities grant that might present as much as $100,000 towards a down fee for patrons under a sure revenue threshold.
Poking round Zillow that September, she was matched with Paul Graham, an agent at Platinum Properties. They bonded at their first viewing and spent greater than a 12 months scouring flats in Brooklyn and Manhattan, beginning at round $400,000.
“Now he’s like my household,” Ms. Llewellyn stated. “Paul was so sincere, and he actually cared about what I might afford. He by no means pushed me for a dearer place or one thing I didn’t like.”
She most well-liked Brooklyn, the place all of her associates lived. Manhattan was “very grown up” and infrequently dearer, she stated, although some listings there match her finances. Affordability was the important thing, so she centered on sunny co-ops with low upkeep charges and, ideally, a versatile sublet coverage in case she needed to journey for lengthy movie productions.
“If it was going to be removed from a subway, I needed it to be huge,” she stated — ideally larger than her 500-square-foot rental, with room for all of her tchotchkes, together with chess units from world wide, a number of guitars, artwork provides and an vintage TV that exhibits solely static.
“I’ve loads of knickknacks,” she stated. ”I needed sufficient house the place I didn’t really feel too cluttered.”
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