They Had About $1 Million for a House in Queens. Which One Would You Choose?

Walking has been a favorite pandemic activity for Diana Erben and Ben Scheck. The couple were living in a one-bedroom in Astoria, Queens, when Covid lockdowns disrupted their routines. So they began following the book “Walking Queens,” by Adrienne Onofri, outlining 30 walking tours of the borough.

It was an enlightening journey. Before the pandemic, “we didn’t have time to go wandering around random Queens neighborhoods,” said Mr. Scheck, 34, who grew up in Flushing.

Now the couple, who plan to be married next month at the Queens Museum, were discovering lots of appealing areas, and visiting some open houses along the way.

“It was fun to go together and talk about the things we liked or didn’t like,” said Ms. Erben, 33, who is from Syracuse, N.Y.

On one of their tours, they were wowed by a four-bedroom, four-exposure home in a Jackson Heights garden co-op, brimming with original detail. “As soon as we saw a place we liked, the hunt became serious,” said Ms. Erben, who teaches third grade at a Manhattan public school.

[Did you recently buy or rent a home in the New York metro area or California? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]

They were hoping to find a sunny place with at least three bedrooms, as well as a dedicated office space for Mr. Scheck, who works from home in information security for a tech company. He wanted to be within walking distance of a subway station, although they “stretched the definition of walking distance,” he said.

A co-op would have the advantage of shared maintenance costs, but the couple were daunted by the process of buying and owning one. And having a private yard was important to them, as was parking — two things much easier to find with a house.

Their budget topped out at $1 million; they were reluctant to exceed that because of the city’s mansion tax. But many of the places they saw for $1 million were in rough shape, hardly mansion-like.

Among their options:

Find out what happened next by answering these two questions: