The search for an apartment - Part I

I had a week to find an apartment for us before I had to start work.  I was expecting it to be tough having read and heard stories about the real estate market in NY but this was even harder than expected.

The thing is they have a intermediary level in the market called brokers.  And brokers charge a commission (around 15% annual rent, sometimes negotiable) that can equate to thousands of dollars - literally.  This is in addition to the upfront costs of 1 months rent for security, 1 months rent in advance, and because we were foreigners I was told that sometimes they need an extra month deposit.  Rounding figures but that could realistically be $20k we needed to hand over in a few days...

The first thing you learn about brokers is that they are generally unreliable and untrustworthy.  From what we had learned we wanted to try and skip the broker altogether and get a 'no-fee' apartment.  This seemed easy enough as we had seen plenty advertised on a website called craigslist.  They are typically the landlord advertising directly or the landlord is paying the broker fee for some reason.  So I set out to find some of these.

We had discussed what was important to us in a property, knowing that we would be signing at least a 12 month lease.  On the list were natural light, 2 bedrooms or enough room to comfortably fit us and the many visitors we are hoping to have,  internal washing machine, decent kitchen (oh my goodness, they use the word 'kitchenette' loosely here) as we planned to cook regularly, not too many flights of stairs.  We had also decided where we wanted to be - either in the East or West Village.

Here are some words to describle properties in NY that would have an impact on price:
Walk-up (no elevator in the building and sometimes you could be on the 6 or 7th floor)
Elevator buiding (obvious)
Doorman building (concierge on site - handy for parcel and dry-cleaning deliveries, as no one does their own laundry)
Loft - Im still not really clear, but usually has large windows and an open mezzanine type level
Duplex - 2 stories but within a large hotel style building

I must have seen 20+ properties, and only a few were what we were after, some were too noisy, in large soulless blocks, terrible location, tiny, 6 flights up etc.  I spent an hour with a guy who had advertised a no fee apartment only to ask me at the end to sign something to say that I would pay him a commission.  I learned that most of the advertisements on craigslist are by brokers who advertise no-fee, but as soon as you phone, that apartment is not available but they had another to show me, with a small fee.  I became very clear in my initial conversations over the phone that we were only after no-fee.

I spent 2 days with a lovely girl traipsing from east to west and back again to see no-fee apartments, but none that we would live in.  Then came "well, we have I think what you are after but there is a fee", I went to see them, and they were lovely but the fee wasn't negotiable in this instance.  It was so frustrating.

We learned that leases in NY are generally only available on the first day of the month (sometimes also on the 15th) so that the earliest we would be moving would be the beginning of June.  The competition was tough and brokers were putting the pressure on as they could lease apartments within a day of them being available.  We also learned that coming into summer was the busiest time for rentals as all the graduating students from college were losing their student housing and needed new accommodation.

I registered online to a website called "skipbrokers.com - New York's number one community for no broker fee apartments" - sounds too good to be true? I thought skeptically as I registered to get further details.  It was very slick, I received an email saying "we have found a property for you" Then I get a call from another friendly girl who wants to meet me to show me an apartment - great I say.  I then go and see the most amazing apartment that I have seen all week which turns out is outside our max price (by $600!) and has a fee.  Skip brokers, my *ss! I was so dejected at this stage that if Ash would have been able to stand in the bedroom I would have been tempted...

I was getting more frustrated and worried that we wouldn't find something before I started work and searching had been a full time job.  On the Thursday night I received a call from someone who I had emailed a few days earlier about an ad but not had a response.  They had another apartment that was available and being shown that night.  I was exhausted, Ash and I had just seen a some in the East Village, one of which we were very close to taking but I must have had a feeling because even though it was an effort to get back to the West Village we decided to go.

To be continued...