My roommate (and dear friend) Carolyn was headed to Texas with her bf to work the school year at Magik Theater, a children's theatre in San Antonio. I briefly considered joining them. However, I really am not one for children's theatre, and even though it's a higher standard of living at a lower cost, I knew I wouldn't be happy away from NYC. I decided to stay and as my lease was up at the end of the year, I'd look for a larger, less expensive place and get a rm.
A few weeks after deciding this, I found out I was up for lottery housing I'd applied for when I first moved to NYC (and completely forgot!). Lottery Housing is when a new parcel of luxury apartments is going up and a certain percentage of those apartments need to go to lower income people. In essence, I would have been able to live in a lavish, brandspankin' new, 1bedrm apartment in my current neighborhood for dirt cheap. I couldn't believe my luck! After endless hours of paperwork and crunching numbers, I submitted EVERYTHING they required, only to be told I didn't make enough to qualify. WHAT?! I talked to my financial people and we re-submitted. This time, I made too much! WHAT??? It was frustrating because the people running the lottery kept changing their minds - when I gave them what they'd asked for, they wanted something else. They weren't forthcoming about what they NEEDED and HOW they were looking at my income. They had only ever asked for my year-to-date info, so that's what I gave them, but they really were projecting out to the end of the year, which is something I could have provided them better than their guessing.
Long story short (too late), after 3 appeals and re-submissions of paperwork, the final answer was that I was over their income limit - by $900. Seriously? At this point I was too exhausted to fight it any further (keep in mind this had gone on from August 2013-Feb 2014). Thankfully, I have a terrific landlord who was willing to do a month-to-month deal with me, which kept me from going crazy from stress. As this was the case, I decided I wanted to take my time to find something that I loved and could settle down in for the foreseeable future.
Apartment hunting, as I mentioned, is a different beast in NYC altogether. Most places you can walk up to the leasing office, say you want to live there, fill out the paperwork, and done. Not so here. Everywhere goes through a broker (if you're lucky, the landlord pays the broker fee - which was my experience w/ my first apt here). If the landlord doesn't pay their fee, you are saddled w/ a hefty bill on top of the first AND last month deposit AND the security deposit. It makes my stomach flip just thinking about how much money goes into renting an apartment here. (I had even considered purchasing a place, because at these prices, why not rent to own instead of renting and that money just disappearing every month? But in the end I decided that wasn't the wisest course of action...for now.) After weeks of dealing with various brokers, getting stood up by brokers (more than once! WTF?!), and seeing places that didn't fit my criteria, I was fed up with looking.
A glimmer of light appeared on the edge of my apartment hunting horizon, when out of the blue my friend Heidi said she'd love to live with me. Not only had I been hunting for an apartment alone, I was of the persuasion I'd get a place then find a rm, another massive hurdle in and of itself. But I could see myself living with Heidi. And it'd be so much easier with a partner in crime with whom to work! We pooled our ideas about what we wanted/needed in a new place, and the search began again.
Heidi was out of town while I started looking (again). By the end of the second week I was tired and annoyed, but decided to see ONE last apartment before giving up and letting Heidi do the next round. I hauled myself up to Hamilton Heights and when I stepped into the unit, I immediately knew this is where we needed to live. Spacious and sun-drenched, there is so much room and it has a very homey feel. It's an old building owned by the Russian church next door. There are only three units in the building, and the first floor unit is being renovated. The upstairs couple has lived there for 15 years! I really liked the owner upon meeting him - very straightforward and honest, which was refreshing, to say the least. The kitchen is huge and sunny, with plenty of counter space AND a dishwasher!!! To top it all off, we have access to the back garden and patio. I'm so excited we are moving in right in time to enjoy summer days and warm nights outside. And there is plenty of room to have friends and guests over, which is a major blessing.
It's a little higher in price than I'd wanted, but I believe it is worth it. I can't wait to start moving in May 14th! Though I'll miss all the bars and restaurants in Hell's Kitchen, it'll be great to have space and a place to settle down, become a little more domestic, and truly relax and unwind after work each day.
Pictures to come when we move in!! (and if anyone wants to help, pizza and beer is on me.... :)