Shhh... I'm hunting apartments

Many of you have not had the displeasure of searching for an apartment in New York. It's not so easy. Back in Sweet Home Chicago the biggest problem you had was finding the time to look. Once you ran across the right place, it was yours (assuming they didn't figure out you robbed a bank, stole Grandma's identity and have no SSN). Not so in NY. Greg and I have missed out on two key apartments so far... the first we were third in line but in the name of fairness the landlord gave it to the first people who saw it, and the second we were first in line, but the landlord didn't care, and went with someone who wanted to sign a long lease (without asking us if we would do so). Okay, we can get over it. Well, we can pretend to get over it.

So problem number one is that you never get the meet the landlords to charm them with your personality so they don't make completely arbitrary decisions. Another huge problem with the system is that it's not even close to affordable. To start with, we are looking at 1 bedroom apartments in Brooklyn (read: not Manhattan) in a price range of $1800 to $2500 per month. This is considered affordable. In general, it's also very difficult to find an apartment without a broker. This person charges you 12% of your annual rent ($2500 to $4000) for the pleasure of having you call them based on a free ad they put up on Craigslist and meeting you at the apartment to show it, where they insist upon telling you why they are worth the fee and then get pissed if you don't like the crappy place they showed you. They then remind you how low the inventory is now and that, basically, you had best take this place lest you be sleeping on the subway.

The other day one of the brokers we are working with calls about a great 1 bedroom with a den. I think this woman is pretty stupid, but she actually calls me, so I like her more than all the others. She says she has this fantastic apartment, tells me how underpriced it is and that last time an apartment came up in this building they had people waiting outside the door before they even had the keys to see it. But she tells me not to come down yet because they don't have the keys and doesn't want that to happen again. In the 5 minutes we are on the phone she suddenly says. "someone just came in to see it, so I'll call you when I get something else." Okay, we lost an apartment we didn't even get to see because someone came down there and sat in the office until the keys arrived. Huh?

Last night we saw another 1 bedroom plus den with a different broker. This one was a great space, was in an acceptable location, but was on the third floor and didn't have laundry in the building or nearby and could have been more updated, but we figured as a designer I could work with it. After we have filled out most of the paperwork to put our names in for it, the broker tells us the owner wants two-months security. So, to do the math... $2100 for first month + $4200 for security + $2520 broker fee (she was willing to come down from 12%) = $8820 to get this apartment, all to be paid by lease signing. Um, that's insane! Today I saw the same apartment listed for $2200 through another broker. Someone really needs to tell the landlady that she's going in the wrong direction on price, especially if she requires two-months security. We passed. It was just too much for a compromise apartment.

So we trudge on. The Stupid Broker has another apartment or two for me to see this week and promises to call as soon as she has the keys. Let's just hope nobody shows up before I can walk the 15 minutes to get there.