Donna, how nice to hear from you! I’ll toss in my agreement that it’s time to get rid of as many books as you can.
A better view is a huge factor to me.
Welcome back Donna L…it is nice to have you around. So sorry for your loss.
To me option B sounds better assuming you can afford the difference… why is that you have the pay the entire rent upfront? If you take an apartment just for a year you will be faced with the moving decision sooner than later. If in 2 years the option B apartment moves off rent stabilization you will have a lot more time to anticipate what you have to do and look for a better living situation. A friend of mine moved from the UWS to Riverdale last year. She said the apartment is a good value with lots of amenities, there is easy express bus/train to the city, Hudson River view. She doesn’t have a car so garage/parking not an issue but the issue is that the area is super hilly and both last winter and this winter that has been a real problem getting around but I understand that Riverdale offers a lot of pluses. You might need to expand your search to other boroughs.
Thanks for the birthday wishes, all!
Bookmama, the reason I have to pay a year’s rent up front at either place is that I am currently “between jobs” (as they say!), and, therefore, don’t meet the universal minimum salary requirements for apartment rentals in NYC (i.e., an annual salary of at least 40x monthly rent), so paying a year up front is the only way that I’ve found of persuading some landlords to consider renting to me. (Many aren’t willing to consider it even with a year’s rent up front, according to both of the brokers I asked to try to help me.)
So, I ended up napping most of the afternoon (one of the few benefits of being unemployed!), and was awakened only by a telephone call from the broker shortly before 5 pm to ask what I had decided. I said the first thing that came into my head (perhaps the best way to decide): that I want the apartment in the elevator building, but that if I can’t get it, I definitely want the other one as a backup. I know myself well enough to realize that if I’d picked the walk-up as my first choice instead, I would end up regretting it the first time I had to trudge up the stairs at the end of a long day carrying groceries or laundry. To me, it’s worth the total rental difference of about $8,000 over two years, for 730 days of not having to walk those 32 steps (plus more in front of the building) every time I come home, not having to go to the basement every time I want to empty the trash, and not having to go out in order to do laundry. And, yes, I’ve thought about the fact that my health isn’t so great, and climbing even two flights of stairs is something I would enjoy even less if I weren’t feeling well. Plus, the difference in moving costs will make up for a little bit of it.
It also occurred to me that I recently made right around that sum by selling an old Yankees World Series championship ring that I bought back in the 1980’s, so I can look at the proceeds as paying for the elevator, the laundry room, the trash chute, and the river view for the next two years!
And if my finances don’t permit staying there after two years, I can always move somewhere else.
If I don’t get the apartment in the elevator building – because I’m not counting on anything until the lease is signed – then I will manage with the other one, and remind myself that it’s cheaper. But I know I would feel unhappy if I had decided on the latter rather than the former as my first choice, even though I already feel somewhat guilty for choosing the more expensive one.
(By the way, I think the main difference in the total square footages of the two apartments is that in the walk-up, the two bedrooms are both decent-sized, whereas in the apartment I picked – which is really a so-called “junior 4” – the second bedroom is only 12’ 3" x 7’ 8". So if my son uses it when he stays with me, there’s really only room in it for a twin bed, I think. But the queen-sized pull-out sofa he uses now will still be in the living room, so he can still sleep there if he wants. I asked my son which place he would pick, and he said he would take the one in the walk-up building, both to save money, and because the second bedroom is bigger, and because walking up two flights of stairs and going out to do laundry seem like no big deal to him. Of course, he’s 24 and perfectly healthy, so that’s all easy for him to say! But he understands and respects my decision.)
That’s a snug second bedroom, BUT they now make super comfortable sofa sleepers with foam mattresses that come in all sizes, including twin (39" wide mattress), full (54") and even smaller, if you wanted a chair that pulls out to a 30" wide cot! We have a queen pullout (60" wide mattress). I forget the dimensions of the couch but will measure when I am upstairs. http://www.americanleather.com/Comfort-Sleeper/Features-and-Benefits.aspx
And THIS furniture line is the absolute coolest thing I have seen!! http://m.resourcefurniture.com/ watch the videos, especially, IIRC, the top right one. Amazing stuff! Watch how efficient it is! and things stay upright on the shelves and tabletop/desks. http://resourcefurniture.com/about/media-press/watch-videos/
Donna, smart choice. I was trying to imagine how a woman who undergone major surgeries would carry a heavy bag of cat litter up those stairs! But I did not want to say anything so it would be your choice.
Happy birthday to you!!! I wish I were there to give you a hand with moving your books!
I sure hope the one with the elevator comes through!
Best of luck in getting your elevator, Donna! Sounds like you made a great choice!
Well, that’s the one I was favoring. Too many advantages not to make it your first choice. Over a lifetime, the money difference will disappear. Fingers crossed that it’s yours.
Sending vibes for the elevator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks so much for all the good wishes. I got a call yesterday morning from the broker saying that the apartment was mine – which made me quite happy! I went downtown to my bank and was able to get back uptown in time to give the building’s office two cashier’s checks (for one year’s rent, and for one month’s security deposit). It’s a 2-year lease @ $2500/month (which is actually less than the nearly $2700 I was going to pay for a smaller apartment on 181st Street which I didn’t even mention, but lost even before I lost the other one I described), so the first year is fully paid-for, and I plan to look at it as living rent-free for that year! (The rent includes heat, but I have to pay for electricity myself, both of which are the usual case). I was given a receipt and the keys to the apartment and building; the lease should be ready for me to sign on Monday or Tuesday. And since my son came in last night to have dinner and stay over with me in celebration of my birthday, I was able to show him the apartment after dinner (the electricity is on, but I have to call Con Ed on Monday to switch it over to my name). He liked it a lot, and is quite pleased to have his own room (no matter how small) for when he stays with me – something he’s never had before in the more than 14 years since my ex and I separated when he was 10. Which didn’t make him happy when he was a teenager and wanted privacy, even though he always understood that I couldn’t really afford a larger apartment at the time, when, even though I was employed, my financial obligations were considerably larger than they are now.
The more I think about it, the more I think I made the right choice. 30 years ago I might not have cared so much, but I’m neither as young nor as healthy as I once was, and I think I will be grateful to have an elevator, and laundry facilities in the building, and not to have to walk down to the basement (and back) every time I want to put out the trash. Plus, there are two supermarkets and a drugstore within a block of the building, which wasn’t true of the other place.
The building happens to be on the same side of the same street as my current building, just one and a half blocks up the street. So I’ll be able to move a lot of things (other than furniture) myself very easily, and the movers certainly won’t have far to travel, especially since the traffic goes in that direction. I’ll probably try to schedule the actual move for about a week before the end of March. The owner of my current apartment, my sublessor, had asked already if I could move out a week ahead of time, because the prospective buyer of the apartment (assuming she’s approved) wants her contractor to get a head start doing whatever renovation she’s planning. So I hope my current sublessor will agree to my paying rent only for the first 3 weeks of March; I don’t want to depend on her reimbursing me for one week’s worth of rent. I also hope I get back the security deposit promptly; that’s a couple of thousand dollars I could certainly use.
I do have to spend some money on certain things that came with my last two apartments, like a couple of air conditioning units (which can wait a while; I don’t need them now!), and, since the windows (even though they’re fairly new) don’t have screens, I’ll have to buy those as well. Especially since I want to be able to open windows without worrying that Ziggy might fall out reaching for a bird or insect! So if the windows aren’t marked with the brand, I’ll ask the super what kind they are so I can figure out what screens to buy. And although I don’t want to spend a lot of money (since I don’t own the apartment and don’t know how many years I’ll be living there), and do not enjoy shopping for that kind of thing in the least, I do need to buy some curtains and/or shades and/or blinds. Nothing fancy-shmancy; I just want to be able to block the sunlight when necessary, and be able to make the bedrooms dark enough at night to sleep, and prevent people in the adjacent buildings opposite the bedrooms from seeing in.
Not a complaint, but I realized last night that this will be the first time since 1959 (when my parents moved from West 70th Street to East 67th Street so I could be in the district eligible to attend Hunter Elementary) that I’ve lived in an apartment building without a doorman! (It’s my sixth apartment building overall; four of the others were in Manhattan and one in New Jersey. Not counting my 13 years in a house in New Jersey while I was married.) How will I live? Who will take deliveries for me when I’m not home? What a tragedy! I mentioned this to my son last night, and he teased me about being a pampered Upper East Side princess. Not quite, but there’s some truth to it! I guess I’ll manage somehow.
Thanks again for all the support.
Donna
Hooray! I’m so happy that the apartment really is yours now. Big sigh of relief. Now, on to the next challenge! Donna, take your time and figure out what you want to do to earn money. You don’t have to do what you’ve always done. Consider this an opportunity to do what you’ve always wanted to do.
What a relief! That 's so exciting! It is a luxury to be able to move in by getting items to the new place more gradually, so you can have for example your kitchen moved and not all in boxes with the rest of the stuff. So glad you got this unit and your S will have a bedroom of his own when he visits (maybe he’ll come more often :)).
So exciting for you and Ziggy!
Thanks.
HIMom, I am definitely hoping that this will be an incentive for my son to stay with me more often!
As for Ziggy, I’m sure the adjustment won’t be very easy and will take a while. When I moved to my current place five years ago – back when he was only four years old, not nine – he spent the first 48 hours (at least) burrowed among the boxes piled in the living room, and meowing loudly all day and night long. But eventually he got used to it, and I am reasonably confident that he will again. After all, I’ll still be there, and the objects surrounding him will be largely the same.
Wonderful news!
Very glad to hear that you got the apartment.
The info you shared on this thread may be quite relevant to us. We are thinking of retiring not long from now. We may face the same housing issue in the future unless we move back to the town we used to live. It is good to know that there is still a chance to rent an apartment after retirement, as long as we can pay about 13 months of rent in advance.
Donna, congrats! Hope your move will be as painless as possible, both for you and Ziggy.