D is starting a grad program is about 6 weeks, and for the past month has been looking for a share situation. (The school has a few grad dorms distributed by lottery, but she was accepted off the waitlist and they were all filled by then.) We live an hour-ish outside Manhattan, 90 mins. from Brooklyn, so she’s been going to see apartments in person–about a dozen so far. Has been looking on Craigslist and the university’s graduate housing registry (it’s pretty inactive) and put out the word to everyone she knows. It’s been awfully discouraging.
First of all, I’d say at last half the Craigslist entries are scams of one type or another (I haven’t figured out what the end game is, but it’s pretty easy to see that the gorgeous place with all new everything, lots of amenities and zero furnishings being offered at a reasonable rent does not really exist.) Among the places she visited, there was the one where the room was too small for a bed (!); the one with no living room, just a bunch of bedrooms; the one with no window in the room (illegal under the fire code) AND no central heat (maybe illegal, too); the ones in sketchy neighborhoods (she’s not picky about location–safe areas in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens within a reasonable commute to school and a neighborhood with supermarket and laundromat are all okay); the one that appeared from the poster’s name to be occupied by a female but was instead being sublet by a very large male (she only feels comfortable if there is at least one other female in the place); the really nice apartment that was in an obviously subsidized low-income building and therefore being sublet illegally (unacceptable chance of being suddenly evicted if the management caught on). The tenants of the only place that seemed appealing so far are keeping her dangling because they think she may be too “young”–she’s the same age as the other roommates, but they are serious, studious, very conservative types with lots of rules (no guests allowed in the apartment during the ten days before exams, blah blah blah) who seem leery of anyone a bit livelier (or “normal” as D says).
In most cases she’s been hustling to see places after a full day of work here in the suburbs, and it’s all been exhausting for her. If worse comes to worse, she can commute to school from home for a while (unappealing to her and us), but she was really hoping to get all moved in and settled before her demanding schedule kicked in.
Per the title, I’m just venting and don’t expect any magic solutions, but she would welcome any thoughts.
It is frustrating. It took my son 4 months commuting to find a decent room in Manhattan (replied to Craiglist ad). When she starts commuting it will be easier to look at apartments. In the trendy neighborhoods many living rooms are flexed out so she will need a decent budget to get a bedroom in a real 2-3 bedroom.
She can place an ad in the rooms wanted section of craiglist. There will be emails from scammers but there may be legitimate inquiries too. NYC colleges have forums where room openings/sublets are posted. She needs to contact everyone who goes to school in NYC.
If she is willing to look at residential areas further away there should be options (like Bay Ridge).
Yup. My lease in Manhattan is up in September, and both my roommates are leaving for grad programs, so I’m doing the search again and it’s terrible. It honestly feels like a full time job. I consider myself a pretty flexible person but some of these “rooms” are ridiculous. Check the Facebook group Gypsy Housing, maybe. I know people who have found success there.
Her school is in Brooklyn? If she’s willing to live in Washington Heights, PM me – I might have a solution for her.
I’ll second looking at Gypsy Housing on Facebook – although she needs to get invited into the closed group. Also, many colleges have their own housing boards. I know Columbia does.
I recall looking at an apt that did not have a sink in the bathroom. The bathroom was conveniently located off the kitchen, so the kitchen sink was available for use outside the bathroom. I feel your pain…best of luck!
I should show this to D2. She is working in NYC with average income for a new graduate. I offered for her to live at home in Manhattan. She has the whole apartment to herself on weekdays because I work else where during the week. Every once in a while she would say she wished she had her own place. She is paying me rent, but no where close to what she would have to pay if on her own.
OP - what is your kid’s budget? There are a lot more options in Brooklyn. I will ask D1. She has a lot of friends living in Brooklyn. Maybe fireandrain has something for you too.
Finding a good place definitely takes hard work and luck
My son moved into his first apartment in Gramercy last month
Met his two roommates on Symbi
They skyped, emailed texted etc and got their apartment together
So far so good
Tell her to try that site
Good luck
Her budget is 1200/mo., including utilities. I don’t think she’d be willing to cross the Hudson. One of her reasons for choosing this grad school was to live in NYC!
She’d love trendy Brooklyn (which is in some areas is a lot pricier than Manhattan–how times have changed!), and has looked at a several places there, but the only one that made sense was the one where they left her dangling.
Temporary housing wouldn’t make a lot of sense since she can commute from home until she finds something permanent.
She has a friend who is attending grad school in Boston. A year ago she found two listings on Craigslist, traveled to Boston to see them, liked both, and ta da, had her place.settled in no time. I wouldn’t have thought finding a share in Boston was an easier task than in NYC, given all the students in the city, but apparently NYC is a housing nightmare now. I went to grad school in Manhattan, lived in student housing one year, then got married and lived in married student housing, and after graduation we had two good salaries and took a lovely junior 4 on the Upper East Side without any angst and at a rent that was half of what D will pay for one small room. Sigh.
Just helped a young relative find a place in Manhattan but with a higher budget. Don’t know NYC well enough but is $1200 including utilities even realistic without sharing a bedroom?
Have your D take a look at the Listings Project website. It was originally a site started to help artists find housing but now has expanded. Manhattan and Brooklyn are two areas that are very active on the site. The listings are updated weekly and there are a lot looking for an additional roommate under an existing lease. No Brokers are permitted.
You have to go to the “Living” section of the site as they also list studio space and choose your geographical area. You have to register and then you will receive the weekly listings.
One of the other things to be careful of is depending on where in Brooklyn her school is, what the commute is like. The school is likely near a subway, but you can face situations where you live in one part of Brooklyn and getting to another part is a nightmare of changing trains. One option might be to look at Queens on the Brooklyn border, if the commute works that may be easier to find something. Manhattan for the most part will be difficult to impossible, and areas that are more affordable (like Washington heights) might be a very long commute, depending on where in brooklyn she will be (the A train is an express in Manhattan, so if the school was near the A or an easy transfer, Washington Heights might work for example).
I think the $1200 is a reasonable target for a share. It’s easier at $1500 –
My son is living on one of the trendy avenues in Crown Heights Brooklyn for $1200 + utilities in a 3BR shared with two fellow alums.
If the OP and her family live that close to the city, doesn’t the daughter have a network of friends living and working there? That seems a more likely way of finding someplace than relying on Craigslist. When my daughter moved to NYC seven years ago, her first place was a room in a shared apartment on the Lower East Side that an old friend’s older sister was moving out of. She barely even knew the older sister, who was moving out anyway, but the sister at least knew who she was and vouched for her with the apartmentmates. It turned out to be less than a great situation, and she moved again a year later, but it was fine for getting a toehold in the city. After that, she formed her own group, looked for an apartment (in Brooklyn), and controlled it. She stayed there for over six years. (She moved out yesterday!)
I do have a sense that $1,200/month is a little low for an un-shared bedroom. My daughter and her apartmentmate were paying a little more than twice that for a very small two-bedroom apartment in Greenpoint. But they considered that far below market; if my daughter had been more mercenary the last time she got a new apartmentmate, she probably could have gotten someone to pay $1,500 or more per month for the slot. Her boyfriend was paying that much in a shared apartment in Prospect Heights. Most of the kids I know who moved to NYC in the past few years have not been able to afford Greenpoint, which is generally ugly and inconvenient but very hip and relatively safe. I don’t know what they are paying in Bed-Stuy or Bushwick, however.
There are housing groups for my school, and I imagine there would be some for hers too. There are often rooms offered on there for reasonable prices - they seem to go quickly, but I just saw one asking for 1250 for a room in a three bedroom apartment near to Columbia, 900 for a place in Hamilton Heights etc. It may be worth looking into.
This has certainly made me more grateful for my university housing - 10k/year doesn’t seem so bad now.
The NY housing market is ridiculous - but many places use a living room as a bedroom and have no living room as a way to make costs more affordable. Some of those places have other shared space. I don’t actually think at the grad student price level a living room should be assumed as a given, so it’s a good thing to figure out how much she values but maybe not automatically write an apartment off for it.What if that one has a larger bedroom with space for a couch or a big kitchen or something?
@MommaJ, when my S was in grad school at Columbia a few years ago he had to find a place to live in NYC while still in France. He ended up living at International House: his own room in a great UWS location for less than your D has budgeted. She might want to look into it:
These days $1200 for her share of the rent and utilities is low. What she should look at is where the grad school is located and the best subway options to get there. Research the farther out neighborhoods on that subway line. For example as Bushwick is getting more pricey and more gentrified, people who commute on the L are moving and have been moving for the past few years to Ridgewood. Same with Brooklyn, people who commute are moving further and further out to Sunset Park and Bay Ridge.
At one point we had a lot of young people in my office who commute in from Hoboken, very easy access.