They went to see another apartment at Plymouth Court, a 1917 building a few blocks away on 82nd Street. This one had a railroad layout covering 800 square feet and was on the third floor of a walk-up. “The third-floor walk-up thing is what we had in Williamsburg, although I do have to carry a bass and an amplifier up, so not having stairs would be nice,” Mr. Bodley said.

The price was $330,000, with maintenance in the high $400s. “They were calling it a two-bedroom, but you would have had to construct some walls and doors,” Mr. Bodley said. His offer of the asking price was accepted.

Unsure that they would clear the co-op board, the couple had been checking out Forest Hills, slightly farther into Queens.

“Forest Hills is not hip at all,” Mr. Bodley said. “Forest Hills is people who were born here. The hipsters in Williamsburg seemed to come from somewhere else.”

There, they found another ground-floor apartment, a charming 950-square-foot one-bedroom, in a 1940 building. “It had this sunken living room and this built-in bookcase in the wall, the kind of features that don’t seem to be prevalent in newer construction,” Mr. Bodley said.