I just thought I would give a little background and edu-ma-cation on apartment hunting in NYC and answer all the questions everyone has been posting about the new apartment (well, mostly just Dad). First, let me just state for the record as clearly as I can, apartment hunting in New York SUCKS.
Basically the first step is realizing that any normal person can not afford to live in Manhattan. At least, not without 18 roommates or about 6 sq. ft to call your own.
Once you accept that, you start looking at places close to Manhattan (New Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens). Then you realize that normal people can not afford to live in the nice parts of those places either (and by nice I mean close to Manhattan, like a couple of subway stops).
Finally you realize that there are "nice" neighborhoods that are a little farther out, but offer more space and almost affordable rents. That brings us to Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Once you have decided that Park Slope is for you, you can narrow down the search and really get serious about what it is you want in place and what you are willing to pay. Well, by the time we had decided on Park Slope, we had done quite a bit of research and seen a few apartments - which caused us to up our max per month price by $400 and be willing to pretty much take anything that had 2-ish bedrooms that was not in the ghetto. Now we were really looking for that apartment.
Let me digress a bit regarding how one searches for an apartment in New York. In most other normal cities, one looks in the paper, or online, or walks/drives around the potential neighborhood looking for "For Rent" signs. Then you call the landlord, see the place, see it again with a friend, negotiate a price and move in date (usually 30-60 days in the future), and finally, sign the lease. In New York, that does not happen. Most every apartment is listed with a "broker" which is basically a real estate agent for rentals. The issue with that is that as agents, they have no vested interest in who is renting the apartment, just that you can pay the rent, how soon can you move in and how high can the rent be (because, of course, they get a huge fee when the place is rented...more on that later). That being said, the process is generally to find a broker who will scour their listings for places that meet your needs and show them to you. Of course, they show you the crap first to try and get it off their list. They only show the good stuff to well established clients and their friends.
If you are lucky enough to find a place that you might want to live, you then fill out an application and submit your entire financial history for a credit check (which you also have to pay for, up to $75/person who will live there). Mind you, you have to make this decision the moment you see the place because it is all about first come, first serve. 5 minutes after you, someone else will be seeing it and putting in their application. And if someone came 5 minutes before you, you're out of luck. Thus, we started carrying a checkbook and copies of our credit history (last 3 pay stubs per person, 2 years of W2s, last 3 bank account statements, letters of employment and salary, and a DNA hair sample). Once you finally have the place, you get to pay, all at once, as much as the following: first month rent, last month rent, security deposit (often 2 months rent), and the brokers fee.
Now the brokers fee, for this person who has shown you crap, forced you to make decisions on the spot and generally not given a crap about you at all, is typically 10%-20% of the YEAR'S rent. Yup. For those not versed on apartment math, 1 month rent is approx 8% of the year's rent. So you get to pay an extra 2 months rent (on average) just for the privilege of being forced to take the first not totally crappy apartment you were shown and move in immediately, ready or not. That totals up to 6 months rent in one check, then you still have to move and pay for that. Thus goes the typical NYC apartment search.
The silver lining, however, can exist. After deciding that I was totally opposed to a broker fee we decided to do everything in our power to not have to pay one. We used Craigslist and no-fee services to help us. Well, that got us pretty much nowhere, but Elizabeth, super internet sleuth, found an apartment that we saw that same day (last Sunday) and put in an application because it was a no-broker apartment (rented by the owner) and beautiful. Of course, we were the ninth people that HOUR to see the place, so needless to say, we were not at the front of the line. The next apartment she found via the interweb (on Friday) was a broker represented apartment, but it hadn't even been listed yet (I'm still not sure how that worked). She called them up, left work that day to see the place at lunch. She immediately put in an application, so as to be first in line. She then called me and I saw it after work Friday, and we signed the lease Saturday.
We do feel lucky, because it has (almost) everything we wanted (more on Carter's "bedroom" another day), and the extra silver lining is that this broker, while still getting a crazy fee (though only 12%), really seemed to have our best interest at heart. He negotiated $100/month off the rent for us as well as convinced the owner to install a dishwasher for us (we will split the cost). At the signing, they had all sorts of neighborhood info and useful information for us. So while I still hate the fee, he did do everything he could to earn it (and the place has enough storage to save us a storage unit, so his fee can come out of that money). It still took pretty much ALL of our cash savings to pay for everything, so we will try to start rebounding in the summer, once the moving expenses have stopped coming in.
In the end, the place is good, the neighborhood is nice, and we don't move until Feb 1. Can't ask for much more.
I would, however, NOT recommend apartment hunting in NYC if you don't have to!
