Apartment hunting in NYC

[glugglug]

Don't want to pay a broker's fee. Looking for a place for me & my fiance to rent for <= 1 year until after prices fall.

Where is a good place to look besides craigslies?

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: glugglug
Don't want to pay a broker's fee. Looking for a place for me & my fiance to rent for <= 1 year until after prices fall.

Where is a good place to look besides craigslies?

Craig is such a liar. Craig lies, people die

 

[psydancerqt]

google brought some up.. this one was first: http://www.rent-direct.com/

 

[SuRgEoN]

There is a beautiful apartment complex on Gold Street. I can't remember the exact name off the top of my head, but it is extremely affordable and just a few blocks from the South Street Sea Port.

 

[nj]

We went through this hell last summer. Here's some tips that we used to stay away from brokers (which is near impossible).

1. Apartments.com has all the major non-fee big high-rises. They are luxury and you will pay a premium, but some are reasonable.
2. Apartmentratings.com has good reviews on the worst buildings. If the building is not on there, it's probably OK as most of the ratings are just complaints.
3. Listingsquare.com is a REALLY good resource. We had a broker for awhile and we realized he was just going to this site and showing us all those apartments (thus getting the whole 10% for himself). We dropped him.
4. Archstoneapartments.com is where we ended up. It's a good place, clean a little section 8 problems (about 20% is very low income) but the place is brand new and lots of amenities. More importantly, they only require ONE months rent, no deposit, no last month, no fee. If you want a referral, PM me and I'll split whatever they give me.
5. Move to outlying parts of NYC - Brooklyn/Queens/Jersey City/Hoboken. There's more deals out there.
6. Remember, in the city you probably need to make 40 x 1 months rent yearly to qualify. Most of the time you can combine two incomes or use a co-signer.

Good luck

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: SuRgEoN
There is a beautiful apartment complex on Gold Street. I can't remember the exact name off the top of my head, but it is extremely affordable and just a few blocks from the South Street Sea Port.

I am familiar with that one actually. The problem is that the reason it is affordable is because you are required to have low/zero income to live there. It's almost all retirees, not the usual rifraf you would find in low-income housing though. Still, I make way too much to qualify for that. Also, almost all the stores in that area (other than the seaport) are closed by 6PM and the subway service is iffy on weekends (amazing considering how many trains stop at Fulton street normally) because of the stupid construction project where they are blowing up the tunnel under south st and changing it to an overpass.

Thanks for the links, nj. Apartments.com looks pretty good, haven't tried the others yet.

 

[SuRgEoN]

I had only been there once. Im from the west coast but my buddy lived there while going to NYU.