Unlike other cities in the U.S., New York City’s apartments go off the market most often in just a few days. This means you don’t get a lot of time to prepare in advance for your next apartment. However, you are not alone in your search for an apartment because everyone else living in New York City had to go through the same struggles in finding a place that will fit their needs.
Recently, my friends and I started our search for our new apartment that we’ll most likely be living in for the next few years. Since we can only live in our dorm for the first year of college, we knew for a long time that we were all going to want to live in an apartment for the next year. Before any potential apartments we could live in were up on the market, I started searching through different websites to get an idea of the general sizes of apartments and their typical prices. No shocker, they were all small and very expensive. But that’s what you get when you live in New York City.
Even though apartments go off the market quickly, there are also thousands of options listed on websites specifically made for people searching for apartment rentals in New York. Some of the websites my roommates and I used were: Street Easy, Apartments.com, and Naked Apartments. You can select your preferences including the basic size, price, and location of the apartment, along with any amenities you may wish to have.
Once you find places you’re interested in, it’s best to immediately contact the agents that are representing the apartment. These apartments won’t be up for long, so you will most likely see the apartment in the next day or so.
After you find the apartments you want to look at, you just have to go view them and see if they match with your needs. Most of the places don’t look very similar to their pictures online, so all of the apartments are a true hit or miss.
Although it may feel daunting finding an apartment out of the thousands of options, you have to set realistic expectations for your first apartment and be willing to see apartments that might not originally be of interest to you. We found an apartment after a couple of weeks of searching, so if we can do it, anyone should be able to do it too.