Elmer Fudd--Hunting Apartments...
As of Sunday, July 26th, roughly 4:00 p.m., my apartment search is officially over. But it came at quite the price…
Back in late May, I visited Stuyvesant Town with one of my three roommates. He would later become my trusty companion through out the apartment hunting adventure. Stuy Town is great—solid location, nearly all utilities included, clean, well-maintained, solid amenities. However, StuyTown is StuyTown, and it always has given me a kindergarten/NYU-housing without RA’s vibe. I, personally, wanted an apartment with an edge, a personality, so we kept on looking…
Now, our criteria is very difficult to come by: Three bedroom, ideally September 1st move-in, no broker’s fees, and for under $3,300 (with utilities, even? Crazy! But you have to please all roommates.). I don’t know of many, if any, people looking to spend that low. On top of all that, any human being wants decently-sized rooms, a solid living room, and a great location. Personally, location was my biggest priority. First, one has to realize that No Broker’s Fees = Random, Hardly-Qualified Brokers.
Anyway, I first focused on CraigsList. Anyone who has used CraigsList knows that it’s literally just random, haphazardly written listings made by people—
“ONCE IN A LIFETIME DEAL ON 7TH STREET!”
“UNBEATABLE price for an UNBEATABLE location!”
“Blocks away from the SUBWAY and PRIME East Village Location!!1!1!!”
They’re not much better than every pizzeria in the city claiming “Best Pizza IN THE WORLD!” There are many listings, many of which look incredibly similar. So for days, weeks, at work, I would compile different listings, numbers, locations, names—I’ve spoken to a Carol, a Theo, a Nick, an Aimee, a Tracy, a Matt, an Anastasia, a Tony, and many more.
Carol was my Financial District guru…I’ll get into that later. Slow-speaking, older woman. Theo was my half-Greek, half-Lebanese, Vinnie Chase-look-alike broker who found us…well, I’ll get into the “one that got away” later, as well. Aimee was a go-get-‘em type, a bit aggressive, oddly flirtatious?; nice woman though. Matt was a struggling screenwriter who actually joined my roommate and I for a beer as we waited for the owner of the building to give him the key. He told us all about his screenplay written for Jack Black, in which Jack Black is adopted by an African-American family in “urban” Brooklyn, who has always been teased by his brothers and peers, but is oddly, in a gross-looking way, good at basketball. Basically, he rounds up a motley crew to take on the meanest and the toughest of the underground street ball world to prove himself. Tracy had a very very cool raspy voice, and skin littered with freckles.
Meeting with brokers sucks. Everyday after work, I would rush to random locations in the city—East Village, Village, LES, Soho, et al., and of course, 99% of the time the broker is late. And then, these qualified brokers would lead my roommate and I on a random goose chase to our destination. Once there, SOMETHING had to allllways go wrong, whether the apartment door is locked, or the owner isn’t around to hand over the key, or the key they have doesn’t work or something. I really wish they were more punctual and professional about this, but that’s what you get for no broker’s fees, I guess.
LES: We saw some around Orchard Street. Not a bad location, not prime, and definitely wasn’t worth it for the size. The bedrooms or apartment were generally too small.
Little Italy: This apartment’s location is sick, literally on Mulberry before Broome, I believe. Again, too small, but possibly manageable. Definitely worth still looking.
Soho: There were a bunch on Thompson Street that were obviously owned by the same owner because their office numbers were all the same. I have a friend who’s living there who said the landlord was a real jerk. I heard the same thing from one of the girls living in one of the apartments. The one right by Houston had very small bedrooms/living room, but sick location. The one by Grand Street’s third bedroom was tiny, but what else is new? Another common problem we’d always come across is that not only would one room be tiny, it would have no window, and if it did had a window, it would be face-to-face with a neighboring brick wall like a dungeon. Like I said earlier, we wanted too much for how little we were going to give…
Village: We saw some AWESOME locations. Bleecker and Thompson. Bleecker and Sullivan. To-die-for locations. But again, something was always wrong—too small, too expensive, bad move-in, 3rd bedroom was a closet, etc. I wish I remembered better…One place we adored had a big living room, kitchen, huge master bedroom, but not only were the other two bedrooms pretty small, but they were sort of a part of the living room. As in, there was a windowed-door between the rooms and the living room…almost as if the room was meant to be filled with plants or something, not necessarily for decorations. I really dug the place if it weren’t for that…
East Village: We saw a nice place on 7th Street between Avenue A and B. Fine location. Good sized rooms, living room. Gets good sunlight. Price was a bit high, I think like $3,500. Also, they wanted an August 1st move-in. Although it was probably the best place we had seen, it was too difficult of a situation to act upon. Still, we kept it in the back of our minds. Theo showed me a place on 2nd Avenue and St. Marks. Great location, even the rooms weren’t too bad. Again, bad third bedroom…story of my life. Not an amazing living room, either…but for the location…Same goes for his other St. Mark’s place, which was actually arguably better, and that was only around $2,800. These were pretty good places, but nothing that struck me as something special. They didn’t necessarily feel right.
So, I also started looking on StreetEasy.com. A pretty reliable site. It was much easier to navigate since it wasn’t littered with a million random listings. There were much fewer, more serious listings. Ronen was using NYTimes.com which eventually led to our “Financial District Phase,” which my one roommate went googoo-gaga over. One gets more bang for their buck in the Financial District, that’s a fact—two to four free months, rooftop access, close to every subway, yada yada yada. But what can they possibly use those saved bucks for down there? A Subway foot-long? A typical Make-Your-Own-Salad store? The area gets creepily dead after a certain hour, and I KNOW if it got late enough, I was not going to have enough patience to wait for the subway at 3:30 a.m. Still, it was a good deal, and my roommate really dug it.
Back in late May, I visited Stuyvesant Town with one of my three roommates. He would later become my trusty companion through out the apartment hunting adventure. Stuy Town is great—solid location, nearly all utilities included, clean, well-maintained, solid amenities. However, StuyTown is StuyTown, and it always has given me a kindergarten/NYU-housing without RA’s vibe. I, personally, wanted an apartment with an edge, a personality, so we kept on looking…
Now, our criteria is very difficult to come by: Three bedroom, ideally September 1st move-in, no broker’s fees, and for under $3,300 (with utilities, even? Crazy! But you have to please all roommates.). I don’t know of many, if any, people looking to spend that low. On top of all that, any human being wants decently-sized rooms, a solid living room, and a great location. Personally, location was my biggest priority. First, one has to realize that No Broker’s Fees = Random, Hardly-Qualified Brokers.
Anyway, I first focused on CraigsList. Anyone who has used CraigsList knows that it’s literally just random, haphazardly written listings made by people—
“ONCE IN A LIFETIME DEAL ON 7TH STREET!”
“UNBEATABLE price for an UNBEATABLE location!”
“Blocks away from the SUBWAY and PRIME East Village Location!!1!1!!”
They’re not much better than every pizzeria in the city claiming “Best Pizza IN THE WORLD!” There are many listings, many of which look incredibly similar. So for days, weeks, at work, I would compile different listings, numbers, locations, names—I’ve spoken to a Carol, a Theo, a Nick, an Aimee, a Tracy, a Matt, an Anastasia, a Tony, and many more.
Carol was my Financial District guru…I’ll get into that later. Slow-speaking, older woman. Theo was my half-Greek, half-Lebanese, Vinnie Chase-look-alike broker who found us…well, I’ll get into the “one that got away” later, as well. Aimee was a go-get-‘em type, a bit aggressive, oddly flirtatious?; nice woman though. Matt was a struggling screenwriter who actually joined my roommate and I for a beer as we waited for the owner of the building to give him the key. He told us all about his screenplay written for Jack Black, in which Jack Black is adopted by an African-American family in “urban” Brooklyn, who has always been teased by his brothers and peers, but is oddly, in a gross-looking way, good at basketball. Basically, he rounds up a motley crew to take on the meanest and the toughest of the underground street ball world to prove himself. Tracy had a very very cool raspy voice, and skin littered with freckles.
Meeting with brokers sucks. Everyday after work, I would rush to random locations in the city—East Village, Village, LES, Soho, et al., and of course, 99% of the time the broker is late. And then, these qualified brokers would lead my roommate and I on a random goose chase to our destination. Once there, SOMETHING had to allllways go wrong, whether the apartment door is locked, or the owner isn’t around to hand over the key, or the key they have doesn’t work or something. I really wish they were more punctual and professional about this, but that’s what you get for no broker’s fees, I guess.
LES: We saw some around Orchard Street. Not a bad location, not prime, and definitely wasn’t worth it for the size. The bedrooms or apartment were generally too small.
Little Italy: This apartment’s location is sick, literally on Mulberry before Broome, I believe. Again, too small, but possibly manageable. Definitely worth still looking.
Soho: There were a bunch on Thompson Street that were obviously owned by the same owner because their office numbers were all the same. I have a friend who’s living there who said the landlord was a real jerk. I heard the same thing from one of the girls living in one of the apartments. The one right by Houston had very small bedrooms/living room, but sick location. The one by Grand Street’s third bedroom was tiny, but what else is new? Another common problem we’d always come across is that not only would one room be tiny, it would have no window, and if it did had a window, it would be face-to-face with a neighboring brick wall like a dungeon. Like I said earlier, we wanted too much for how little we were going to give…
Village: We saw some AWESOME locations. Bleecker and Thompson. Bleecker and Sullivan. To-die-for locations. But again, something was always wrong—too small, too expensive, bad move-in, 3rd bedroom was a closet, etc. I wish I remembered better…One place we adored had a big living room, kitchen, huge master bedroom, but not only were the other two bedrooms pretty small, but they were sort of a part of the living room. As in, there was a windowed-door between the rooms and the living room…almost as if the room was meant to be filled with plants or something, not necessarily for decorations. I really dug the place if it weren’t for that…
East Village: We saw a nice place on 7th Street between Avenue A and B. Fine location. Good sized rooms, living room. Gets good sunlight. Price was a bit high, I think like $3,500. Also, they wanted an August 1st move-in. Although it was probably the best place we had seen, it was too difficult of a situation to act upon. Still, we kept it in the back of our minds. Theo showed me a place on 2nd Avenue and St. Marks. Great location, even the rooms weren’t too bad. Again, bad third bedroom…story of my life. Not an amazing living room, either…but for the location…Same goes for his other St. Mark’s place, which was actually arguably better, and that was only around $2,800. These were pretty good places, but nothing that struck me as something special. They didn’t necessarily feel right.
So, I also started looking on StreetEasy.com. A pretty reliable site. It was much easier to navigate since it wasn’t littered with a million random listings. There were much fewer, more serious listings. Ronen was using NYTimes.com which eventually led to our “Financial District Phase,” which my one roommate went googoo-gaga over. One gets more bang for their buck in the Financial District, that’s a fact—two to four free months, rooftop access, close to every subway, yada yada yada. But what can they possibly use those saved bucks for down there? A Subway foot-long? A typical Make-Your-Own-Salad store? The area gets creepily dead after a certain hour, and I KNOW if it got late enough, I was not going to have enough patience to wait for the subway at 3:30 a.m. Still, it was a good deal, and my roommate really dug it.
One place worth mentioning was Dwell by Yoo. My roommate was dead set on this. Faaancy place. Some dude from Gossip Girl lives there. Everyone looked like they were late-twenties, early-thirties, well-established, and very yuppy/socialites. Not really the place for three awkward twenty-year olds. Philippe Starck, some French designer, designed it and it really is decked out—like golden elephants and Swarovski chandeliers and little elf-statues to place your stuff on the roof deck. Financial District always sports a free gym, which was very modern and touch screen at this place. It’s hotel-themed, so there is a complimentary breakfast every morning Monday-Friday. Every room also has a washer, drier, crystal chandelier, and dishwasher. The rooms had never been lived in, everything was new. They even threw in four free months for kicks. Sure, walls had to be built. Sure, the living room, by default, wouldn’t be too big. But what’s not to like? Well, the vibe. It’s one of those unexplainable things. And lucky for me, my roommates’ mom loathed the two Financial District places we looked at. The entire time, she was giving Carol and the guy giving us the tour attitude, making comments on the side and such. I felt so bad for them, but I was also glad I had someone who agreed with me.And then there was the one that got away—1st avenue between 13th and 14th. My boy, Theo, brought me here on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Above a halaal place and a pizzeria, across the street from the L. Fourth-floor walk-up, but we’re supposed to be young, strong youths in our prime anyway. Asking price: $3,000. Sure there was half a month of broker’s fees, but that’s a small price to pay for such a great place, FINALLY, after torturous searching. East Village/close to Union Square people! Big bedrooms, big living room, unofficial rooftop access. Ahhhh…I still can’t believe…well, I’ll finally tell you.
So I was ecstatic about it, called both of my roommates immediately, my dad, my girlfriend. My roommate, unfortunately, couldn’t get out of work in time…Bummer. My other roommate that doesn’t live around here was sold from the pictures, locations, specs. Theo warned me that the place is in demand, that we have to act fast. Well…acting fast wasn’t my roommate and father seeing it the next day. And then the NEXT DAY after that, his parents came in to see it.This was stressful, mainly because it was just a difficult awkward situation. I don’t blame any parties involved--Stuytown was cheaper, had more amenities, cleaner, washer, dryer, elevator, utilities, etc. Sure, we’d have to schlep our laundry to a local Laundromat in February. Sure, moving in would be a pain. Sure, it wasn’t decked out in all the ways Stuytown was, but most places aren’t! We’re kids! We’re twenty! We’re supposed to rough it out a little! Very few, if not none, of my friends’ places have what Stuytown has. And they pay more than us! This was the place for us! Or for me, at least. But again, like I said at the start—no edge. The parents weren’t digging it, and it really was quite difficult making my case for this place alone to somebody else’s parents. It was probably rough for my roommate, too, who was torn between his parents and myself. It’s difficult describing the “edge,” or how I fell in love with this place. There’s no real tangible or statistical way of explaining it. I really liked this place, I really did, finally…and I’m a picky person. Even shopping for a shirt will take me like over an hour.
FINALLY, after over an hour and a half, we decided to go through with it; first thing in the morning we would go there with the deposit, paperwork, etc. The owner of the building was Theo’s friend and gave us priority over the other peoples’ application; she would much rather he get the broker’s fee than some random person. After a long day, it was done, it was settled. Finally, we had a place! And a place I liked! And for such a price! I was ecstatic! Life was good! But then…but then…then, the other people raised their bid by $200 to $3,200. Uh…uh…uh…yeah, that’s exactly how I felt. Speechless. Just when we had all the paperwork and money in. Just after we had gone through a stressful two days communicating back-and-forth, getting all the paperwork together…What can I possibly do? $200 is quite a lot. $2400 will buy the landlord and his wife a nice trip to Europe, you know? It’s not peanuts.
I was devastated. Absolutely devastated…like I lost my kidney to a stranger on the Black Market…so, finally, we ended up where we started—Stuytown. My third roommate was visiting the city from the Midwest, time was running out, and we were determined to have something figured out and signed by the time he left. We wanted to look at more places, give the apartment hunt one last hoorah, but a mixture of him wanting to see friends, not feeling too great in the morning, and apathy, steered us away from doing so, so we settled. It’s not quite settling, though; Stuytown is a great place. I mean, that’s why we originally started our search there, it’s a very good deal. And you know what, once I was there, all three of us together, signing…it felt right. And it felt good. It felt good to finally, after over a month of searching, have this all settled and figured out. I’m feeling good about Stuytown, knock on wood, and am looking forward to an awesome year.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, NYU housing!
stuytown, a world away from middletown ;) congratulations on your first apt!!!!
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