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<p>Just think of it as another place to meet people…</p>
<p>Max – Do you have a place where you could crash be on the couch (or is there a cheap YMCA or youth hostel kind of place in a reasonable part of NYC) so you could search in person for a few days? Committing to an apartment without actually seeing it or meeting the roommates and getting a feel for them seems very tricky and a bit scary. If this is impossible, is there a Penn friend in NYC who might be willing to check out your final choice for you?</p>
<p>The problem is just finding something that works first, let alone visit in person. My timelines/budget ranges/desires don’t seem to connect well with anything anyone’s looking for at the moment. Supply doesn’t meet demand.</p>
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<p>Yeah, while they fold their underwear.</p>
<p>Make sure you visit before you sign a contract. The building might look nice, but the surroundings might be terrible.</p>
<p>^^One of my friends met her husband in their NYC building’s laundry room. Young widower, young, single woman. They married 9 months after and lived happily ever after.</p>
<p>legendof max, I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>It is going to be impossible to find a studio/1 BR in SoHo or the financial district for $1300-1500/month. For that kind of money, you’re looking way up north in Manhattan or further out in Brooklyn or Queens.</p>
<p>Now, if you want roommates, then $1500 in SoHo is enough, but frankly, I don’t blame people for wanting to meet you and assess your reliability as a rent-payer before taking you on. That’s quite reasonable of them.</p>
<p>Where is your place of work? You’ll want to find a place to live that’s on a subway/bus line that also runs by your workplace.</p>
<p>re: laundry
if your job requires sports coat/suit then your laundry will be the cleaners.
I think that since you will be newbie, in finance, that you will find that your time doing laundry is a waste of time. Your time will be precious and people burnout quickly in the financial industry.</p>
<p>GL</p>
<p>there is a Wharton Club in NYC. Are you a member yet?</p>
<p>At some point Max will surely need clean underwear… but I suspect most adults on this site have spent time in a laundromat at one time or another, it is not that bad if you take something to read 
I worked for a big consulting firm for many years (also a big hours/burnout industry), and always managed to wash my own underwear. I’d suggest it is better to learn to navigate places like laundomats than to start a career with the idea that one is entitled to have someone else do tasks like this. If your time is “too precious” for that, you are too full of yourself. As, unfortunately, I think many in the large financial firms are at the moment… But Max won’t be one of those (hoping that job is not with AIG, Max!).</p>
<p>In NYC, you can send laundry out – not just suits/dress shirts – but day to day laundry; most dry cleaners have several washers/dryers and they’ll do your laundry, fold, and deliver. It’s an option but I wouldn’t rely on that alone – at some point in your life you may want to leave NYC or may realize it’s a waste of money and will want to do your own laundry. Make sure your building has washers/dryers in the building or that there’s a laundromat within a few blocks; frankly, you’ll be working long hours and washers/dryers in the building will be worth the premium – sometimes you’ll only have time to throw your laundry in at 10 pm and it’ll be so much easier to walk downstairs to the basement to do that.</p>
<p>intparent: My concern was just the notion of having laundry in the same apartment complex versus needing to venture outside with everything.</p>
<p>However, I finally found affordable housing with some roommates in a great place, so I think it’s all going to be fine. Since I couldn’t meet in person, we did everything over video chat (and I had a friend check the place out in person).</p>
<p>We will have a virtual house warming party. I’ll bring the champagne, hope everyone is over 21.</p>
<p>My d lives in Soho. She takes her laundry into a place on her street.</p>
<p>She drops it off in the morning and it is ready that night. She figured out that it is about $1 more per load to have it done for her. I would not worry if the building lacks a laundry room.</p>
<p>Max,
Congrats on finding a place you (and your friend) are comfortable with!</p>
<p>Max, don’t stop giving us updates just because you have a place to live now. We want to hear how it goes when you move in, how your first day of work is, and all that!</p>
<p>Life can be a beautiful thing when things start coming together.</p>
<p>legend, I’m late to this thread but wanted to add my congrats. When I lived in Manhatten, I carried laundry down four flights of stairs (walk-up) and several blocks down the street to the laundry mat. You get used to it. Another issue for me was the need to buy light weight food, because it was heavy to carry grocery bags home. People make adjustments for NYC, but it’s worth it. Enjoy.</p>
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<p>So true. Logistics can be a huge PIA but after a while, it becomes just another part of your life.</p>
<p>Ah, this is bringing back newlywed memories of shlepping one of those two-wheeled grocery carts, packed with stuff, blocks and blocks back to our apartment (we lived in the then very grocery-store deprived area near Columbia University) and then hauling the thing up the outside stairs to the front door. Then, going back further, there was my first night in a dorm at Columbia. It was late August, I had to keep the window open, and I didn’t sleep for one second listening to the constant fire, police and ambulance sirens. By 4 am I was pondering how long a human being could live without sleep, unable to imagine I could ever fall alseep in that room. Within a week I snoozing comfortably every night, oblivious to all the street sounds. Yes, it’s amazing what you can get used to living in NYC!</p>