Let’s just talk a minute about competition. As a kid, I hated competition, naturally, I mean I grew up with the only thing to compete with was my horses for longest legs, and I think I’d win that at my age now (we’re a lanky family.) I purposefully avoided competitive sports because it stressed me out (yeah, that’s the only reason…), never fought for the two swings in the gravel pit in the middle of a field the school called a playground, etc. For reference, this is me at a mandatory track meet with a sick stadium. While we’re on the subject of competition… how many cowboy hats can you find in this photo?
Speaking of cowboys, here's a little country kid secret, if you ride horses in groups, each horse is naturally bred to be competitive and wants to be the one in front of all the others despite it's riders wishes... That always made for good country life initiation for city slickers who came to visit.
Now let’s talk about competition in New York. You can’t even go to barre class without fighting to get off the waitlist. I’m talking signing up a week in advance at 10 am when the schedule releases. Sunday brunch at that insta-famous place where you drink adult Capri Suns? Don’t even think about it. If you applied to a job 10 minutes after it posted you’re probably the 100th person to submit your resume and 3 people have probably already sent them a gift basket with a tag stating, “hire me, my dad knows Tim Cook.” An evening trip to Trader Joe’s allows about two generous seconds to put your first item in your cart or you’ll turn around to find someone else pushing your cart. You get the picture. That isn’t even a warmup to the apartment hunting process here, allow me to enlighten you with my experiences.
Picture this, a lovely 400 square foot studio apartment with updated appliances, dishwasher, and washer dryer in unit. Nice right? Not gonna happen on the 23 year old graphic designer budget. Not gonna happen on the below 30 and not in finance budget honestly. Interiors aside, let’s just try to find a decent apartment below 1900/month. Here’s just a few highlights of some I saw: two basement apartments, one where the shower was in the kitchen, and one lovely pre-war (code for pre-any kind of taste/technology?) with flooring so uneven I tripped walking the 5 feet to the window.
Streeteasy was my new best friend, I had to stalk this site every moment of my life. Apartments that have lasted on the market more than A WEEK, are a red flag that it’s a POS like previously stated. You’ll probably get bait and switched at least 6/10 times by brokers (fancy NY name for realtor), and some of those happen in person. Snagging a good, scratch that, liveable apartment requires a form of necromancy I have finally become aware of. First secret: have your papers in hand when you go look. When I say papers I basically mean your entire life in a manila folder because qualifying is an art form in itself. Gotta make 40X the rent or have a guarantor making 80x the rent. Do that math real quick on a $1900 apartment (a steal here) and tell me whatcha think ‘bout them apples. Just to apply for a place you’ll need W2’s, bank statements, references, a letter of employment, copies of ID’s, and might as well throw in a lock of hair for DNA testing.
The biggest secret to the magic of securing your apartment is to not think. If you walk into a place and think, “I can handle this for at least a year,” you’ve already taken too much time, say yes immediately. I once walked into an open house that started at 12 at 12:15, turned around to apply and someone was filling out the paperwork already… Another example, I walked into a leasing office for an apartment that was just two hours old online and the person that I brushed shoulders with on the way in had just applied. Later that week I walked in a leasing office for three studios and this is what I saw:
Then finally, it was a cloudy Sunday afternoon when a cute upper east side studio showed a glimmer of hope after seeing/just missing out on at least 20 apartments in the past two weeks. I showed up for the open house 10 minutes early and once that door opened, I had about three seconds to scope the place before I had to apply and beat out the three girls already at the open house. I simply had to put down a $1000 cash deposit with my previously mentioned folder of my existence. At two o’clock on a Sunday. I can do this. I ran, literally, to the nearest ATM, which somehow let me withdraw that much cash on the fly. I didn’t have time to decide if that is sketchy or awesome. Then I once again found myself running down the streets of Manhattan, this time with a grand in my hand hoping the other girls hadn’t beat me. GUESS WHO FINALLY WON, MEEE. And I said I wasn’t competitive… I guess I learned a thing or two from those horses after all.
I went to bed at 6pm that night, competition is exhausting.
I’m not sure why I would trade in the life of having an entire pool all to myself, unlimited green space (although no trees grow in this area of middle of nowhere, TX), and a washer and dryer that baby me didn’t appreciate, but then I think about how cool it is to have maybe 300 square feet of Manhattan in my name, and I don’t regret it for a second.