<p>Go MAX!!! (I know a really cute redhead living in New Jersey right now:))</p>
<p>^LOL. And the CC help continues! Would that redhead happen to be a close relative, Alumother?</p>
<p>You don’t need a car to get over to Long island City in Queens! It is just on the other side of the East River from midtown Manhattan and there are several train lines that go there. It is literally about 5 minutes from Grand Central. I think Oldfort mentioned you will be working in midtown? If so, I really recommend you look into LIC. Brooklyn is good too but Williamsburg is expensive now. If you need easy access to downtown, other parts of Brooklyn will be an easier commute (and probably cheaper). You might also check out uptown: Harlem (east or west), Morningside Heights (Columbia area), Washington Heights (the most northern tip of Manhattan). </p>
<p>By the way, life will be much easier for you in NYC without a car, unless you find a place with parking included.</p>
<p>This search is insanely difficult. @_@</p>
<p>Pretty sure half of the responses I get on CL are scam attempts (wanting some form of direct payment as opposed to splitting costs to pay to the landlord/apartment). I may have to just settle for a sardine can for a few years until I can check out reputable places in person, haha. What do you guys think of the financial district/Soho? My worry about Queens/Brooklyn is that I’d be far too disconnected from everything socially.</p>
<p>My BIL lives in Bayonne and it’s 25 minutes by light rail and PATH into the city. Lots of young graduates live in Jersey City, also right over the river and easily accessible via public transit.</p>
<p>You are right to beware of scams. The NYT had some articles recently on folks getting burned via online postings. A broker seems to be the safer way to go, but that requires $$$$$ upfront.</p>
<p>SOHO is great. You may be better off staying in the city especially if you don’t know anyone there.</p>
<p>Looking for apartments was my least favorite part of grad school in NY. Everyone I know has worked with a broker. LIC and Brooklyn are happening places for young people.</p>
<p>My daughter is living in Alphabet City, and so (separately) are some of her college friends. It’s a really nice neighborhood. But, essentially, everyone like them lives in Brooklyn, and pays somewhat less for more space, in less cute neighborhoods. (Yes, folks, Alphabet City, which scared the bejeezus out of me 32 years ago, and was where Rent took place, is definitively “cute” now.) They’re theoretically closer to fun stuff where they live now, but they are socially isolated because the real action is in Williamsburg and east of there. I think they all plan to move when they can.</p>
<p>The problem is that so many of these places want me to come meet them in person (hard to do when you’re out of state). Gah!</p>
<p>Why are all of these listings so damned sketchy? They all want such strangely customized payment plans – it makes me want to just assume “scam.” Maybe I just don’t know enough about how apartment/renting works? I always assumed it was a first+last+security deposit type of thing. Other times guys ask for some direct-to-roommate pay of two months rent, etc. Just seems so odd.</p>
<p>Don’t you have some Penn classmates that are in NYC? Can’t they give you some help and advice?</p>
<p>It is complicated to rent in NYC. You need to make sure you are renting from the landlord directly instead of subletting. If subletting then it would need to be approved by the landlord. When you are renting in a co-op building it would need to be approved by the board, but not if it’s a condo.</p>
<p>You should really see it before you rent. Some apartment’s walls are very thin, you could hear your neighbor sneeze. Sometimes the street is very noisy or you have strange smell from a restaurant below. You may think it’s no big deal, but when you are working hard and have to focus at work, the last you need is to not be able to sleep because of those different factors. Our first apartment in NYC was next to 2 very wealthy European girls. They were suppose to be going to school, but they weren’t. They would start getting ready to go out 10pm at night, and finally out the door sometime after 11. Often they would forget to turn their tV off, so we would need to listen to that while trying to fall asleep. Worst thing was when they decided to bring their date home, and then that’s very noisy. After that experience, I would always do a sound check before I sign a lease - pre war buildings were best for blocking out noise.</p>
<p>If you are a Wharton grad, you must have lots of friends who are in NYC. Can you see if you can spend a few nights on their couch while looking for a place? You can also google couch surfing NYC and there’s a website that will put you in touch with people who has a spare couch either for free or at low price.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you’re back in Texas now, but you do not want to sign any kind of lease in NYC without seeing the apartment first; I’ve done that in other cities but in NYC you really don’t know what you’re getting and I would assume that a lot of listings on CL are a scam if they’re requiring payments up front. If you’re going to be working long hrs, I’d recommend being in Manhattan – the last thing you want to be doing at midnight is commuting home; being downtown is a great option – you can get a newer place at much less cost than in other places in Manhattan.</p>
<p>You could line up a broker (PM if you need recommendations) and they could have 10-15places lined up for you to see in a day or 2, so that you can lock up a place on a really short visit to NYC. If you have a little more time, you can often save on brokers fees by walking around the neighborhood you like and going into buildings and asking the doormen if there are any empty apartments. Often they’ll let you just see the apartment and then tell you who the management company/landlord is – then you can contact them directly without using or paying for a broker. If I was you, I’d really go with a ‘condo’ building rather than a co-op. A condo building is a normal rental process whereas a co-op involves providing all sorts of financial paperwork, you may need guarantors etc. – it’s a long process and often apartments fall thru. As for websites to look at, I think NYTimes is always the most helpful – you can see recent listings there and they are often listed by broker so you know who to call. PM me if you have questions – I just did this process a yr ago and the NYC rental market is good right now for renters.</p>
<p>The reason that so many of these listings sound like scams is because people get very “creative” when it comes to apartment renting in NYC. You could call it a scam, which in some ways it is, but the person getting ripped off is not necessarily you. Often, it’s the landlord (although many tenants would argue with this). The thing is that some tenants make money from subletting/shares because they have a rent controlled apartment (much lower than market rent, sometimes easily 1/4 of typical rent for similar apartment), and charge more or less market rates for subletting or to their roommates. That’s why they ask for you to pay them directly rather than the landlord. Yes, I think this is illegal, but it happens all the time. It’s very unlikely you will be put on the lease in a share situation anyway, unless they move out and you take over the lease. So, in most of these situations, you will be paying the prime tenant.</p>
<p>I suggest that you find a temporary place that is the most reasonable sounding, in Manhatan, and once you’re here, spend time looking. You might see if you can get access to Columbia’s listing for shares (I think they have something like this). Don’t go for the cheapest thing you can find! You might be shocked what passes for an apartment in this town! Fortunately, this is not one of those crazy rental market times. It’s actually a very good time to look for a rental and landlords are even negotiable these days. My S got a free month rent for signing his lease and when it came time to renew he was able to re-negotiate a lower rent.</p>
<p>Also, you definitely do not have to be in Manhattan to have a social life. Most young people seem to end up in Brooklyn or Queens and there is so much going on everywhere now, you don’t have to worry about being isolated. You do want to have a reasonalbe commute, so study the subway map when checking out locations.</p>
<p>In addition to the neighborhoods I mentioned before, you might try the upper east side. Not the cushy neighborhoods around Madison Ave, but the far east side, closer to the river. There are lots of young professionals in those big post-war apartment buildings and lots of bars and socializing. Not my scene, but if I were a young Wharton grad, that’s probably where I’d end up. Subway’s kind of lousy, but you’re not far from work up there. Walking is always an option to midtown.</p>
<p>2blue, why yes, now that you ask:).</p>
<p>Congratulations LegendofMax! Good luck with apartment hunting, and all the best to you on this new chapter of your life!</p>
<p>Another congrads here!</p>
<p>The job was th big thing. The living arrangements will work out.</p>
<p>There’s no way I am going to be able to look at apartments in person – I got in contact with a friend of an old family friend (they’ve known each other for like 50 years or something) who is very knowledgeable about NYC housing and he found a few great spots – he’s been doing this a long time, so I’m basically trusting his judgment on this one (he sent me pictures and it looks like an awesome place – great building). Excellent location, too. My only complaint is that there’s no laundry (which is shocking, considering the type of building it is), but the places that are of comparable quality with amenities like laundry tend to go above my budget. Laundromats honestly sound awful to me. I’m still not locking into it, but I’ve got to act pretty soon before it’s gone.</p>
<p>Mousegray: Yeah I can imagine how paying the tenants directly can be a cost-workaround, but that can also be a channel for scamming (which puts me in a powerless position as I can’t come look at the place/meet anyone in person). I have a handful of friends in NYC who have given some advice/asked around if anyone needs a roommate/etc but so far everyone’s kinda settled in. I’m just not exactly comfortable trying to set up a “pay the tenants directly” type of thing, especially if people need to start moving out later. For now I basically just need a place where I can ship everything/fly over/settle in and start working. Once everything’s in the city, I’ll be able to better fine-tune things later if need be. The current place is on the high end of my budget, but it falls within the /40 rule, so that should be fine.</p>
<p>Is there anyone who’d be willing to look over my conversations with these guys I’ve been in contact with? If it’s a legitimate deal, it sounds rather good (luxury building, and a VERY good location for me – all for a fairly cheap price due to cost splitting). I’m fairly sure that it is legitimate, but it’s one of those “pay the tenant” things, as it’s a 3 BR converted into 4. Would be useful to have a more trained eye look at the conversation to see if it’s worth pursuing. I’ll be videochatting with them tomorrow.</p>
<p>My problem with getting a studio for just myself is that I basically don’t want to fork out the high end of my budget for something that doesn’t have everything I want regarding amenities and may make it harder to be social.</p>