With a new day comes new clarity. I thought I would wake up and know which apartment we were going to choose or at least which one I wanted to fight for but I just felt blank. I add in a third option, the Art Deco Hole, to see if it makes any difference to the discussion. It would be perfectly fine and the price is more than reasonable for a starter apartment. That is all our first apartment was ever suppose to be. But once you peek behind the curtain is it really the same after?
All of those sessions sitting in the salon to become blonde watching House Hunters on mute with captions suddenly makes sense because your greed can and will eat you alive even if you know what your budget is suppose to be. I thought I would be so sensible if I were on the show. I wanted to be. I couldn’t even try to be. I have some delicious first world problems.
Torn between “Stairs” and “Closets” we take to sheet paper and pen to look at the numbers again while doodling a pros and cons list. Surely you can guess who is doing which.
Even though we have the money from selling the house, Cohabiteur is wise not wanting to get too far in the deep end. Meanwhile I am running around bored of throwing dollar bills in the air screaming, “I want to make it snow!” Shine bright like a diamond, bitches. I am a monster that cannot be contained.
With Stairs the lease start date would be December 15th and with Closets it is December 1st. We figured we would have a 12/1 lease start, as that is more common, and would end up paying the first two weeks before we moved. There is a lot of appeal to having the lease start align with moving day.
There are financial factors that make the decision between the two especially hard. We were warned that if we did not find jobs going into our move that we need to be prepared to pay a year’s rent up front plus fees and deposits. Let me pause for dramatic effect- A YEAR RENT UP FRONT.
Typically you have to show that you make 40 times the rent to be approved without a guarantor or require other special considerations like sacks of cash. Stacks on stacks on stacks. The landlords want to protect themselves and incur little to no risk from having someone who stops paying since eviction can be a difficult process.
Neither one of us had any luck landing something beforehand, which we were also warned about. Without an address you aren’t always taken very seriously as a candidate. It is something that can get your resume instantly tossed out unless you have an inside edge. It is a classic chicken or the egg. Which comes first the address or the job? They must make this intricate and difficult on purpose. The greater NYC area is burgeoning with some 8.5 million people and it would probably be a lot more if they did not weed people out through natural selection such as occupation, finances, and those too faint of heart.
I have run of the mill skills. There are thousands of people out there just like me. My resume is a bit lackluster and my experience all over the place. I also kind of lack an industry so finding a head hunter for “generic office lady” that does not want to be an Admin Assistant but “I swear I could probably do almost anything” is hard to come by. The ups and downs of being a nobody.
Pro tip: if you want to move to NYC either have a highly desirable, recruitable career or save your pennies, quarters, Washingtons, Hamiltons, and Franklins.
Stairs was my first impulse as soon as I saw it. This one is definitely going to be full rent up front. The idea of writing a 30k plus check isn’t something my other half is keen to do. I mean, in a years time we are going to pay it anyway. But for a dude that is fiscally conservative that’s a big ask.
But Closets threw us an unexpected curveball only asking for first and security and then would allow us to pay month to month. I feel irresponsible not immediately putting this apartment in the lead. The application process will be a little more formal and involved but we shouldn’t have any problem since we prepped our documentation before the trip.
For reference, I have been informed by Cohabiteur that we will be paying ourselves back the rent we spend within the year as soon as we have jobs. Gulp. My Amazon addiction cannot support that.
We have an appointment to meet up with our lovely Realtor this morning to sign paperwork. She, like everyone else close to us, is waiting to find out the decision. We are too. Walking to get a green smoothie for brekky before heading into Manhattan we are still going around and around. “I know which one you really want so that is the one we are getting”, he tells me. The thing is I don’t know. I really do not. I feel as though he wants Closets more for the practical purposes and I get that. He won’t admit it.
They both have great potential and are polar opposites. Not knowing what our jobs will be, how much we will make, and how bad the taxes will be- and my god I have heard horror stories, it seems going month to month on rent is the better choice. We are now on the subway still chewing it over.
We arrive at LG Fairmont and I realize that this is the first time I am going vertical in the city. I’ve never really had a reason to do that before. Oh wait, that’s a fib, I did the Empire State building once in 2005. But this is the first non-tourist time. Realtor meets us and tells us she has some news about one of the listings.
We are secretly, out loud, hoping it’s a lower price or something equally as enticing to push the decision over the edge. It’s about Closets.
That management company will allow us to do a December 15th lease start, which is generous, since it’s been available for close to 90 days to wait a little longer on us. But the price will not budge. Rats. If somehow it was going to be $2500 and paying monthly there is no way we could say no to that.
So the playing field is level. Same lease start, almost the same price, but different terms for the payment option.
Cohabiteur interjects, “I’m not paying that much to live that far uptown. We are getting Stairs.” And it felt right. And just like that it was decided. I think it is secretly what I wanted to hear. Realtor was surprised with the choice which surprised me.
There are a lot of desirable perks to Stairs. The neighborhood is stellar and the duplex aspect will make a great space for entertaining since I can feel a newfound popularity coming on.
The process for this unit is much more simplistic since it’s a management company Realtor has a direct relationship with. The first thing we have to sign is a document acknowledging we are aware that she represents both parties- the lease break people and us. We each must fill out an application and then we wait for our credit to be verified and to receive an answer on approval.
See, you can’t just say- I will take that one, thanks. Your apartment has to pick you as much as you pick it.
By this point I am twirling around in my chair taking selfies to document the momentous occasion. I’m sending out teasers to my closest loved ones. I asked for votes the night before and “the fireplace” was a clear winner. Almost unanimous, but not quite. Which I am kind of surprised about… four closets, people!!! If you had been there. If you had seen it. I betcha you would have done the same. (Time step, dance hand, and “That Jazz”)
Realtor gets a text and lets us know they are good with our credit. As they should! I pretend to do that hot air blowing thing on my hand and then polish something near the collar of my shirt but only in my head. What is that motion anyway? The Colonial Manicure? I think in gifs. My credit score is a point of pride.
There is more spinning around, more waiting. Finally we are told we are approved! Lease signing will be at the management office in a few hours. We need to head over to the bank to get several certified checks for the realtor fee (12% of the yearly rent), two $75 application fees- one for each of us, and security plus the year rent.
I’m afraid my other half is going to get queasy or pass out. As we wait in the Bank of America queue I consider reminding him not to lock his knees. I am prepared to pry the paper checks from his locked, white-knuckled fists if need be. It’s a lot of money, I guess, if you think in that kind of way. I don’t. It’s all just made up gobbly-gook to me. If I have the imaginary number in my account, imma gonna spend it. I am a terrific life partner in case you are wondering.
The management company is on the same block and street as our beloved Stairs. There is a bit of signing to do but it doesn’t feel as formal or immersive as I imagined it would be.
The first thing we sign is that there are no bedbugs in the building. I am glad to hear that… but can we all just STFU about it ASAP because thinking about it, much like thinking about lice, is making me itchy and I am positive things are crawling on me now.
The next one confounded me. One of us had to sign stating no children under 10 would be living with us. Wile E. Coyote would have never seen me coming how Roadrunner fast I snatched up that paper. My black, dead little heart wants the privilege of that honor.
Apparently it is NY law that landlords have an obligation to put bars and locks on all windows even for units on the first floor so they need to verify who will be living in the home.
I guess there was an epidemic of kids falling out windows or something. The statement I looked up really wanted to clarify it was not to prevent crime, but we have all seen that Ghostbusters with the creepy painting where a specter with a pram straight up Amber Alerts baby Oscar. If only there had been bars on those windows. Tisk, tisk 1990’s New York City, tisk tisk.
Lastly, we had to sign the actual lease and a kinda lengthy addendum. It said we agree to not Airbnb, no bringing a bicycle through the common area halls among other things, and that we were advised to get renter’s insurance. And just like that it was done. Well except for coaxing Cohabiteur to let go of the checks. That took longer than the signing. I looked up and saw the first snow flakes of the season falling outside the window.
Since we arrived there had been clamoring about the possibility of the season’s first snow. How special it was to not only to be in town when it happened but for that to be the exact moment when we signed. It was indescribably perfect. We went to do a little victory slash announcement boomerang video in front of the apartment. Later I would post it as our first public announcement of our big news.
We said goodbye for now to Realtor and she encouraged us to go for a walk in Central Park. Y’all, this is when I almost slipped and died twelve times in direct relation to snow and this was just my first day with it. Snow, 0 and Me, 1. But it was almost a tied game. It was frosted, crystalline perfection, though.
I cannot wait to practice writing my new address over and over like I did during my Saved By The Bell fangirl years when I scrawled Mr. & Mrs. Zack Morris on all of my notebooks.
XX W. 8Xth Street #X New York, NY 10024
Who would have thought that while I was playing MASH back then that what I would end up truly wanting had been “A” for Apartment. New York City as my location, 0 for cars and not Mark-Paul Gosselaar as my Cohabiteur?
Since February 2017 I made four visits to the city. Five total when you count that first trip 13 years ago. As I rode across the Williamsburg Bridge I wasn’t trying to memorize the Manhattan skyline. I felt at peace for once as I headed back to Penn Station on my way out of town. It was the first trip I didn’t feel dread having to leave. Soon I will be back to start what I hope to be one of the greatest love stories of my life, my relationship with New York, New York. I’m going to be a part of it.
But before I move to my super charming, completely NYC apartment and begin my dream life I have a lot I have to undo and untether myself from. Thinking about it makes me metaphysically exhausted. We still have a lot of suburban baggage. Two cars, for example. Also two pets, a rental home, friends and family, and a lack of winter clothes. All leading up to the best and the worst moment: moving day.
How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time.
New York Nobody 