Retired and Buying a Starter Home. It’s Forever.

But Ms. Kopelman, an artist, heads uptown to the Upper West Side at least five days a week for painting classes, to enjoy meals with her friends at kosher restaurants or to take in ballet performances at Lincoln Center. And as she approached the half-century mark in her apartment, she decided she was tired of living in a space that she couldn’t renovate. And while a rent-stabilized apartment is a rare treasure in Manhattan, the couple do not have children, so they knew they could not pass it on to family when they died. “There are no heirs to the throne,” she said.

“There’s a saying from Rabbi Hillel,” she said, referring to the Jewish sage. “‘If not now, when?’ And that’s just what I began to think to myself.”

Mr. Kopelman, a retired professor of education, agreed. In early 2020, the couple hired a real estate agent to help them zero in on apartments in the $1 million to $1.5 million range on the Upper West Side. The pickings were slim — the apartments she saw were either very small, or in such a state of disrepair that they would have required significant renovations.

Then the pandemic hit, putting a pause on their plans. In the meantime, Ms. Kopelman discovered the website StreetEasy, and by 2022, she was finding listings herself. One of them was a one-bedroom near Lincoln Center, on the 21st floor with sweeping views. It was priced at $1.95 million, well above their budget, but she felt the location and the panoramic city views made it worth the stretch. They bought it in November for $1.88 million and hope to move in later this year after renovating the kitchen.

After half a century in her rental apartment, Ms. Kopelman said she is ready for a change, and not feeling sentimental. “It’s time,” she said. “So many people I was friendly with left my building, and now they’re all 20-somethings,” she said. “I wanted a nicer apartment, and I didn’t want to be up and down on the trains all the time. Fifty years is a long time to be in the same place, and if I wasn’t going to do it now, when would I do it?”