Things I've learned about New York Real Estate during my apartment search--
- closets are NOT a necessity. They are a luxury.
- if you can fit a bed AND a dresser in a room and still have space to walk, it counts as "spacious."
- if an ad says "Convertible 2-bedroom," it means one person can sleep in the living room and they'll charge you like it's a two-bedroom apartment.
- you can choose for your apartment to be spacious, safe, or affordable; but you cannot combine any of these options.
- you can knock off about $50/mo from your rent for every extra floor you walk up above the third floor. This means a 6th-floor walkup is the best bet-- not only will you save money on rent, but you also won't need to pay for a gym membership. Of course, you might melt in the summer when all the heat rises, but at least you don't have to think about that for another six months....
- "Elevator building" is actually a bad thing when you're looking in certain sections of Manhattan-- especially East Harlem, West Harlem, and Washington Heights. There are some people with whom you just never want to get stuck in an elevator. Many of those people live in those "elevator buildings"; and those elevators look suspiciously likely to break.
- when someone tells you a certain neighborhood isn't safe, listen to them. And never, never go check it out at night with the goal of seeing the real neighborhood. You don't want to see the real neighborhood. That was the point in the first place-- you should listen to people who know.
- if you didn't listen to the people who know and you're in that sketchy neighborhood and you are walking past abandoned building after abandoned building and are tempted to turn around, do so. "We're so close, we may as well see it while we're here" is a dumb thing to say. (I'm sorry, Gretchen. But at least we made it out okay, right?)
- you just can't think about what kind of housing you could get in Philly.... or anywhere else, really.... for what you're paying in the Big Apple. You will just get depressed.
I nearly died laughing reading this aloud to my friends.
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