January 25, 2006

• Finding an Apartment in Manhattan: A Tragic Tale of Misery and Despair

  Here’s something I wrote a few weeks ago but didn’t get
  around to actually posting…  I had written it on my home computer, which
  I then packed and put on a moving truck.  The truck took a couple of weeks
  to get to my new apartment, while I slept on an air mattress that deflated as I
  slept and caused me to either wake up on the floor or get up in the middle of the
  night to blow it back up :/

  On
  the fateful night of December the 19th, I flew in to New York City to look for an apartment. 
  Awesomely enough, this just so happened to be the night that the transit strike
  started (the strike also happened to end on the 22nd, the last night I was in
  the city).  The strike shut down all of the mass transit in the city,
  which basically screwed me over.  The strike shouldn’t have really been a
  problem for me.  I was looking for a place close to the office so I could
  just walk to work.  My hotel was in that area, so I should have just been
  able to walk around and check out apartments.  Unfortunately, things never
  turn out to be so easy.

  Most
  of the listings I found, even on web sites like craigslist, were through
  brokers.  I really didn’t want to have to go through a broker, but I
  didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter.  In case you don’t know who
  brokers are, they are evil real estate agents who hoard lists of vacant
  apartments.  They then advertise these apartments and show them to
  people.  Just for that, they charge you a huge chunk (~10-15%) of your
  yearly rent if you end up signing a lease.  Of course, with Manhattan rents this ends
  up being thousands of dollars.  The landlords don’t care… they just tell
  the brokers which apartments are available so they don’t have to spend any
  effort advertising.  So, there’s pretty much a B.S. system in place to
  benefit the brokers and landlords and screw over tenants. 

  Anyway,
  because of the strike, most of the brokers decided to forget about trying to
  get into work.  I’d call a broker office and there wouldn’t even be
  someone there to pick up the phone…  The few brokers I did get a hold of
  were a-holes.  I called one guy about a listing and he said he’d show me
  the place later that afternoon.   He told me he’d call back in half
  an hour to arrange it.  After an hour passed, I called his office and he
  was gone…  I tried calling him back a
  couple more times but never got a response.

  Over
  the span of three full days I was able to get *one*, yes *one* broker to show
  me some apartments.  I was forced to choose from the four apartments she
  showed me.  I just picked the least expensive one since the others didn’t
  seem any better.  Of course, I got charged thousands of dollars for her
  few hours of time.  At least I negotiated her down to a 12% fee from her
  brokerage’s standard 15% even though I had no other options (and I had already
  signed the lease heh).  

  Looking
  back, I guess things turned out alright in the end.  My apartment isn’t bad and I live near a
  couple people from work, and it’s a 15 minute walk to the office so I don’t
  have to ride the subway.  I’m just glad I
  won’t have to deal with any of that B.S. again… at least until next year :/

  • 12:27 am
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