The Joys of NYC Apartment Hunting

Shopping for real estate in the overheated New York City marketplace has been educational as well as an occasionally mind numbing experience.
Scanning the classifieds in search of your dream apartment you are met with terms like WBF, EIK, NP, Estate Sale , etc.  Some of these terms you figure out pretty quickly, like WBF, wood burning fireplace. Others are more opaque and require the reader to have a vivid imagination...

An ad for a million dollar apartment in "Estate Condition" , conjures up images of the Getty Mansion in California or perhaps the tony Beverly Hills estates. Hmnm, you think, the price seems reasonable.
Brimming with excitement you arrive at said apartment, ready to tour the palatial estate, and then your eyes are met with something that generally resembles what was left in Georgia after General William Tecumsah Sherman completed his famous "March to the Sea" in 1864.
Apparently "Estate" simply means, the old folks are dead, and the kids are selling off the family apartment and depositing the cash into their respective bank accounts.
Of course, no effort is made to update the circa 1940's decor and appliances because, that costs money and a dollar spent on renovation is a dollar that won't make it's way into the aforementioned bank accounts and hey  "somebody's gonna buy it anyway  ".....
No , the ancestral family apartment will sell no matter what the condition and fetch a fair price.
You must also be careful to see if Pets are allowed (assuming you have one), because some buildings don't allow pets. I looked at a beautiful apartment and started to get the "this is it!" feeling only to find out that pets were not welcome. A tug of war began to play out in my head...the dog..or the apartment...the dog ...or the apartment...suddenly I'm in a modern day version of "Sophie's Choice" with me as Meryl Streep.
At that point I had to ask the realtor only to show me apartments where I did not have  to consider euthanizing my beloved Jack Russell in order to purchase my dream home.

My wife and I enjoy throwing a log on the fire and enjoying a nice warm drink together in the winter months. Therefore, our search had to be narrowed to apartments with fireplaces.
We learned that there are different types of fireplaces that one can have in an apartment. As you have probably guessed there are wood burning fireplaces aka WBF's (these we like), and of course there are gas and electric one's as well,  but here in NY, there are even more choices.
Here we can offer you a "Decorative Fireplace". What's that, you ask?? In general, it's a hole in the wall with a mantel around it that no longer can have a fire in it. You may find flowers, sea chests and occasionally, even unburned stacked logs that look like they could be set aflame at any moment, if indeed, you had a working fireplace. Disappointing? Yes, but it gets worse.
We were looking at an estate condition apartment recently that said it had a fireplace. After a cursory examination I realized that I hadn't seen a fireplace. I asked the realtor about it and she turned and pointed toward  a wall in the living room and proudly announced in a sultry voice "decorative fireplace".
I followed the line of her finger to a blank wall. On the floor there was an inlay in the wood that suggested "something" rectangular may have been on that wall at some time, but at present, there wasn't even the remains of a fireplace opening, much less a mantel.
I felt the need there and then to create my own real estate acronym, the IDF, which stands for "Imaginary Decorative Fireplace".
I then asked her why I couldn't have an imaginary wood burning fireplace since I'm partial to the crackel and snap of imaginary logs burning. Her narrowed eyes told me that she failed to see the humor in my response.
Undaunted, I continued...
"Do you have any apartments with decorative toilets"?
Now her finger was pointing at the door that she wished me to exit thru. I decided to leave before she felt the need to employ another nearby finger, likely in the upright position.

Finally we come to the apartments that we should buy because they have "good bones". These are apartments that cost seven figures, but are priced a little below comparable apartments that don't require gut renovation.
In theory, you look at these opportunities to find a bargain that just needs a little TLC.*  (see gut renovation)
Well I've looked at these apartments, and in general "good bones" translated into "bone cancer" in most instances. Inoperable. No hope for recovery. Not even an interior decorator from an experimental design clinic south of the border could perform the miracles needed to transform these places into your dream home.
Our search for the perfect pre war high ceilinged apartment with the WBF continues....