With their lease on a Lower East Side apartment expiring, two software engineers wondered if buying made more sense than renting, now that the housing market wasn’t quite so frenzied. Here’s what they found. Kathleen Li and Matthew Molnar hoped to find a place with enough room to raise a family and work from home occasionally. “They were by far the best buyers I’ve ever worked with,” said Eric Zollinger, their real estate agent. Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times.