How to Get the Apartment You Want, Part 3: Preparing Your Paperwork

The number 1 thing you can do to ensure you get the apartment you want is to have your finances and paperwork in order before you start looking. Unlike most cities, in NY you are not just renting an apartment–you are also applying to rent an apartment and just like applying for a job or college admission, you want to present yourself in the best possible light . Being organized and prepared makes you look like a way better potential tenant than all those other people scrambling to find their 2006 tax returns or who can’t even remember their last landlord’s full name.

How to Get the Apartment You Want, Part 2: Questions of Timing

Today I will address questions of timing in an apartment search. The first question is “how long should it take to find a rental apartment?” and the second question is “how many weeks before you want to move should you start looking?” There is no hard and fast answer to either of these questions and they are undoubtedly related and thoroughly intertwined. How long you spend looking for an apartment depends on how picky you are and how realistic you are about the mutability of rental market conditions that may preclude the very existence of your “dream” apartment. After seeing 30 apartments over a series of two months and having them all be insufficient, it might be the case that what you desire does not exist and you will need to adjust your expectations so they are more in line with reality.

East Village Church View

How to Get the Apartment You Want, Part 1: Should I Use a Broker?

This week I will be outlining the process of renting an apartment in New York, drawing from my own perspective and experience as a broker. The first question on every renter’s mind is should you use a broker? I am a broker, so I say “hell yeah!” But seriously, I realize that many people don’t want to pay that fee and in reality, it’s a basic question of time and resources. Would you rather spend time or money? Do you even have time to look for an apartment on your own? Do you believe that it is worth paying somebody else to go looking for apartments on your behalf?

“How to Multi-task a Room” via Apartment Therapy

In small NYC apartments it is often necessary to make an office/nursery or a kitchen/dining room or a bedroom/livingroom. Apartment Therapy calls this “multi-tasking a room” and offers creative solutions for making small spaces more usable, more enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing!

Rental Q&A Courtesy of the New York Times

“Must tenant show up to renew lease?”

“Can a landlord end a lease prematurely?”

NYC Rents Decreasing? Apparently Not.

Via the NY Observer: Although vacancies are up in many neighborhoods over this period last year, the Observer writes that rents are decreasing only slightly, if at all. The reason? In spite of lay-offs in some industries and the climate of economic malaise, more people are putting off their first home purchases until they feel more confident in the sales market. And basically, more people keep arriving in New York and they need to live somewhere. Nonetheless, in some areas of town rents are falling. For example, they’re down 9% in Chelsea. Full article here.

What are the Top Five Things That Renters Look For?

Courtesy of Apartment Therapy. Obviously, the top five things are not the same for everyone but there were a lot of repeats: on-site laundry, nice kitchens and baths, aesthetically neutral decor and storage space were high on many people’s lists. What are the main features you desire in a rental apartment?

“How to Cope with the NYC Rental Kitchen?”

This question is brought to you via Serious Eats…

A Private Company as Guarantor? Introducing “Insurent” via the NY Times

It sounds like a strange idea at first: prospective tenants without a sufficient credit history can now hire a private company to guarantee their rent. For a flat fee, a new insurance company called “Insurent” will guarantee your rent to a landlord for up to one year. For people newly arrived in New York or those without a parent to act as guarantor, this idea is a lot less strange. The concept of the guarantor is uniquely New York and as rents rise, the time-worn formula that landlords use to calculate whether you can afford the rent (40x the monthly rent) has gotten more difficult for new hires and recent graduates to afford. For a $2000 a month apartment a tenant is expected to earn $80,000 a year and the guarantor formula (80x the monthly rent) requires guarantors to earn $160,000 to help a son or daughter rent that same apartment.

Sixteen Perils: Don’t You Want to be Covered? More on Renter’s Insurance via Apartment Therapy

Rental Insurance is one of my favorite topics. The risk versus reward curve is so heavily in favor of an insured person that getting the insurance should be a no-brainer. Still, many people (myself included) wait for far too long before taking the plunge. Insurance just sounds so grown-up, like something my grandpa has. For not much more than $100 you too can be a card-carrying insured adult and won’t have to fear fire, flood, theft or the sixteen other perils that can befall your apartment. To find out exactly what these perils are, this great post on Apartment Therapy delves deeper into the murky realms of insurance and I hope you find it as useful as I did.

Rental Q&A Courtesy of the New York Times

“Paying Moving-Out Fees in a Rental in a Condo?”

“Stunned By a Lease with a 25% Rent Rise.”

With More Condos Going Rental, Current Renters Are Also Future Buyers

A much-discussed feature of our softening sales market is the increase in luxury condo units that are converting into rentals. This discussion is usually an integral part of the whole doom and gloom “glut of condos, oh noes!” stories that are a current staple of NY real estate reportage. What I like about this NY Post article is the more positive spin they put on the trend (you know I like to remain positive). Renting a condo is not a gloomy alternative to buying, it’s an opportunity to “try before you buy” if you are unfamiliar with the neighborhood or uncertain about the building’s construction quality or have any other questions or doubts about what it’s really like to live in a certain building –then renting for a year or two in a building you would like to eventually buy into is a great idea!

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Search for a Manhattan Rental!

Of course, when you’re looking to spend about $200,000 per month on a rental apartment, it better be pretty darn special…[via the New York Post]

Landlord has Lease Renewal Question, via Brownstoner

“Renter hasn’t responded to Lease Renewal–what to do?”