Find Your First Apartment

Finding the right place to live is no small feat—especially in NYC. The real estate market is swimming with scams, the rent is too damn high and things move F A S T! I just completed the process and I’m still alive to tell the tale, so I guess I did something right. When preparing for the process I listened to and read tons of war stories about finicky brokers and nightmare landlords and neighbors. Honestly, I was a bit scared that I wouldn’t find a place that I liked and could afford. Here are some tips that helped me along the way.

1. Do your research (part I). Talk to people in your personal network. Let your friends know that you’re thinking of moving in the near future. They will be a wonderful source for finding roommates, trustworthy brokers and if they’ve lived in New York they can tell you the honest truth about city life. I found my broker through my alumni network, and my two roommates through friends and Facebook groups filled with friends of friends. See if you know anyone who has just gone through the grueling process of finding a place to live, they might have advice. When my best friend was looking for an apartment last fall, I kept tabs on her journey, listened to her rant about the experience and learned from her mistakes so that I wouldn’t make them.
2. Do your research (part II). Go online and get a sense for what’s out there. Websites like Street Easy and Naked Apartments have tons of listings all over the city. You can search according to price range, neighborhood, amenities, size and discover what your ideal apartment could potentially run you. You may ultimately choose to rent an apartment using brokers on one of those sites, or through another private brokerage firm. Either way, make sure that you read reviews and find out how other people’s experiences with your potential broker have panned out.
3. $$$$$. Figure out how much you can afford to spend each month on rent. Typically you shouldn’t spend more than 1/3 of your take-home pay after taxes on your monthly rent, to be safe. If that number doesn’t bring you to where you need to be in order to rent, consider getting a roommate or multiple roommates. Splitting the cost and raising your overall budget will increase the number of options available to you. You may even need to consider getting a guarantor or a lease guarantor company to qualify for certain apartments. Essentially guarantors are people (often parents) that will sign on to your lease stating that they take responsibility for your rent if you are unable to pay. You might lose your job suddenly or face unexpected expenses one month and fall short on rent. A lease guarantor company is like an insurance company that acts as guarantors for people that don’t have families that can act as a guarantor. Money is a big factor, so make sure you’re clear on your budget and how you’ll pay your rent ahead of time.
4. Make your wish list. Before you call a broker make a list of all of the necessities, things that you absolutely won’t budge on. If you absolutely need to live within 5 blocks of your office or school, that should be a prioritized and listed as your number one condition. If the thought of doing laundry at a public laundromat scares you, make sure that you mention that at the beginning of your search. Then list the things that would be nice to have, but aren’t deal breakers.
5. Come prepared. It would be a shame to find the place of your dreams, in your budget and lose out on it because you were missing one of the seemingly trillions of documents landlords request. It was painful coordinating with my parents to get all of our important documents together at the last minute, so I highly recommend you sort that out before you even start looking at places. Once you place an initial application you may only get 36 hrs (or less!) to gather and send in your support documents.
6. Timing is everything. Be prepared to make decisions quickly. It’s very possible that you may see a place in the morning, visit other apartments and then find that at the end of the day the first place you saw has already been rented. This is why it’s important to know what you want, so you can make decisions before the perfect apartment slips away! My roommates saw a place on the first day of the hunt, and the three of us immediately knew it was the place for us. We put in our applications within the hour, guaranteeing that no one else could see the place until our application was fully considered. (Good news: we got it!)

It’s tough out there, but if you follow these 6 complex simple guidelines, the process will be a lot smoother. I learned a lot about finances, making decisions and setting up a life in the hunt for a new home. Now that I’ve survived the NYC real estate market, I feel like I can tackle other grownup things, like cooking my own meals and actually doing that laundry I mentioned!