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Business

NEW BOOK UNVEILS TRICKS TO SNAG LUSH NYC PADS

By
Sheila Mullan
Published April 13, 2008, 5:06 a.m. ET

Any 24-year-old who can buy her own New York City apartment – in Manhattan, no less, on a $46,600 a year salary – deserves to be listened to.

Farnoosh Torabi did just that, and she opens up her bag of tricks and explains how she was able to buy a piece of the American dream in 2004 – as well as other lifestyle “tricks” – in her upcoming book, “You’re So Money: Live Rich, Even When You’re Not.”

While the book, set to come out this Tuesday, explains how to afford the finer things in many areas of your life – martinis, nice shoes, fancy clothes – the chapter that may prove to be most popular with city denizens is about her coup in buying her Upper West Side apartment.

“My parents really taught me how to stretch a dollar,” said Torabi in an understatement as large as her dreams. “They were new to this country but they wanted to achieve the American dream. And they have totally done it.”

Torabi, now a senior correspondent for The Street.com TV, got her Iranian-born parents to take out a $295,000 home-equity loan on their house and used the loan to pay cash for her condo.

A week later, the Worcester, Mass. native walked into a neighborhood bank and got a home equity loan for 80 percent of the condo’s value – $286,000, the max it would lend her. Torabi turned the cash over to her parents to repay 80 percent of the loan. Mom and dad kept a 20 percent stake in the apartment as an investment.

Torabi then converted the home equity loan into an adjustable-rate home equity line of credit at 4.5 percent – which carried monthly payments of $885.

The monthly payments grew every month, so in 2005 Torabi closed on a $250,000, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage which is interest-only for the first 10 years – her monthly payment is just $1,248 for the first decade.

And think about this – renters are paying $2,800 a month to live in studio apartments in her building.

After 10 years, Torabi’s payments jump to $1,700 a month. Meanwhile, the apartment has doubled in value over the past four years, which probably makes her parents very happy.

You must pick and chose what you want out of life and forsake the non-essentials for the important things you want, says Torabi, who works as a freelance writer, baby-sitter and, now, author to earn extra cash. “That’s my shoe money, that’s my money for eating at Babbo,” she explained.

Break down your “need-wants” – beyond basic survival needs such as food, shelter and clothing – the things which satisfy you, she explains. Perhaps she was alluding to the $330 Marc Jacobs shoes she picked up at Barneys for a party.

She probably got them on sale and saved a bundle.