New York City apartment hunting is a mind game that escalates into a full-contact sport. Primarily because there aren’t a lot of them — weird floorplans, lack of natural light, shower stalls in the kitchen and other miseries. And that’s before figuring in your commute, nearby amenities and all the other things that make an apartment liveable instead of just a place to park your stuff.
But then, you find it. It’s probably not perfect, and there’s that one thing you swore you wouldn’t compromiser on, but it ticks enough boxes and you’ve seen so many places and the deadline is looming, so you say yes.
Ah, if only that meant it was a done deal. But in the Wild West that is New York City apartment hunting, it’s just the air horn signaling the beginning of the Amazing Race portion of your ordeal. You’re on the clock against all the other people who had also glimpsed the light at the end of the apartment hunting tunnel, except instead of sighing with relief you’re running to your bank for a certified check (which costs $20, as if the process of moving weren’t expensive enough) then rushing to submit your application.
It’s worth it, right? Credit: Eva Kis
When NYC apartment hunting becomes the Amazing Race
It all came crashing down on a woman whose morning seemed to be going great when she made the mad dash against the closing doors and won on my J train. She slumped in her seat and settled in for a few rounds of Candy Crush when a call comes in. It’s her broker, asking where she is and making sure she’s on her way to their office — because someone else who also wants her would-be apartment is headed there, too.
This was obviously a shock, as she kept desperately demanding, “But I have the check, that means I get the apartment, right?” Alas, no, as she was told at last three times: Unless she’s the first person over the finish line of her broker’s office door today, she will not. She had planned to be there in a couple of hours, but not anymore. The clock was ticking and the manic gleam in her eye made me hope she didn’t run into her competitor at the finish line because it was clear who would win.
It would be almost charming quaint, that in our digital world you still have to rush around from place to place with physical papers. But this isn’t a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan rom-com, and your old lease is ending whether you have a new one or not.
Our first apartment, an admittedly spacious studio where rent went up by $50 every year until we said lol no. Credit: Preston NY
I watched this unfold with no small amount of PTSD. The same scenario played out when my husband and I were looking for my first apartment in the city. It was the last place we saw after a day of increasingly depressing units scattered across the Upper East Side — the oldest sales tactic in the book, with the added benefit of wearing us out walking up and across 40 blocks all day.
Our would-be apartment was an unlisted unit that hadn’t even been vacated yet and by far the best deal we’d find in the neighborhood, within walking distance of my husband’s then-office. It was after 5 p.m., and the broker smiled pleasantly as we told him we’ll take it — and said to prove it by bringing a certified check that night to his home, lest the other couple who saw the unit earlier the same day beat us there.
By 7:30 p.m., we were sitting on the sofa in his living room across town, handing over that certified check and signing preliminary paperwork. I remember him commending our hustle — “motivated” was the sales buzzword he used. Instead of a compliment, it was one of our earliest realizations about how uncivilized city living can be.
It could all well have been a lie, of course — neither us nor the poor hapless woman willing the J train to go faster with the power of her mind knew whether there really was someone else on their way, check in hand. The broker could’ve just wanted their commission faster.
But there’s no way around a broker if you want an apartment that’s habitable with a decent landlord — living without hot water or gas for the stove from mid-December to mid-February after my husband made apartment hunting his full-time job for a month is its own column.
So say a prayer for my frazzled fellow commuter, and wear comfortable shoes on your next apartment hunt.
