In New York, believe it or not, it’s actually really easy to find an apartment. All you need is money. A lot of it. So, if you happen to belong to the group of Unfortunate Ones: those who hold professional jobs but make less than, say, $65,000 (approx: €52,900 / CAN$76,700 / £35,600) per year, finding a place can be a little harder for you. I know this is true because I, too, am one of the Unfortunate Ones. If you’re one of them / us, basically, there are two ways to find an apartment in the city:
1. Craigslist. God bless Craig’s little heart. All you have to do is type in what you want and what you can afford online. Visit the place(s) during the Open House or individually arranged appointments. Repeat cycle for days, weeks possibly. Fork over cash, pass the credit check, sign the lease or sublease. Voila new home. (Side note: Craigslist segment on NPR.)
2. Broker. Pay someone else to look for your apartment for you, but they’ll charge you a commission of up to 15% of the annual rent. You’ll also jump through hoops and provide copies of your tax returns, last two W2s, past 3 months of bank statements and a letter from your employer verifying annual income. And, remember, this is just to rent, not own.
All of this “apartment talk” to say …. (drum roll, please) … I found an apartment and I may move in this Saturday. NO MORE CRAZY ROOMMATE!!! Blue skies, hopefully, are ahead. Even though I’ve signed the lease and I’ve got the keys, I’m afraid of speaking too boldly about the place (i.e. “Wow, I’m moving!!!”) because I’m afraid that I’ll somehow jinx the whole thing and the gods will come and take it away from me. And, by “it” I mean not only the apartment, but the city of New York itself. Between the first place with the roommate and the new one, I’ve now paid exactly $10,769 in broker fees, security deposits and rent for a 4-month period — $1,469 more than I paid for an entire year of Chicago rent! I’m not a rich lady. My credit cards are now maxed and all of my savings are completely gone. If this apartment falls thorough, I might eventually be forced to move back to the Midwest, quite honestly. I love this city to death. But, I have limits on how much I’ll allow myself to be tortured financially.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
The West Coast has plenty of space. There are small pockets with the supply and demand problems in housing but few.
back to your first ever post – whatever became of HOUSTON?
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I’ve often heard nightmarish stories of finding a decent home in NYC. It is positively foreign to me. I still tell myself how much I’d love to move there for about two or three years, but hearing your story discourages me.
You are much tougher than me. And congrats on the place. :-)
1. I love the west coast. Mountains. BEACHES. What’s not to love …
2. Houston didn’t work out. We had a great couple of dates, but it went south after he took me to a party for one of his friends and pretty much ignored me the entire night.
3. I’m honest about life in New York. Here you’ll hear the good, the bad and the uglly. All at once, NYC is a great city and it’s also a difficult city …
thanks for the HOUSTON updates, stolie – i needed closure. :)
i love that nickname and i don’t even drink vodka.
being a dominant gene gal, i loves the recessive genes plenty. but i gotta admit, not too much beats that smouldering elvis-dark-hair-light-eyes-combo, eh?
dayam.
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Just doing my part to provide closure to the Anonymous People of the World.
For the record, Houston was a 2 out of 3 (or smouldering elvis-dark-hair-light-eyes-combo as you say) guy, too. :)
Stolie
Ah, the pain of New York apartments. Before fleeing to LA, I was paying $1750 for a MICRO studio at 34 x 6th.
Now, I’m at $1400 for a large 1BR with a backyard and patio.
I have no idea what to do with all this space.
Large apartments … I remember those were like …
OHMIGOD that’s a lot of fees! I hope your deal turns out okay and you get to stay here. Really, I can’t imagine living anyplace else. And there are so many no-vegan restaurants!
Good luck!
It worked out and I got the apartment. So, I plan on sticking around for a little while … for now. :)
Hi. I stumbled across your site by an accident but was happy that I took a second to look. My sister and my friends have recently started a huge lot of online research for finding apartments in Italy and where to stay and other misc. Anyways, thanks for the scoop – glad I ran across it by mistake and will keep in mind. With research I quickly began compiling information about Florence apartments on my site.
Make sure that you know your precise limit before the auction begins! It is very easy to get excited once an auction starts and you may find that you feel like you could bid just a little bit more than you wanted to. But if you do that, you will find that it is just as easy to go way over your price limit for something that you really want.