A Spot in the Big Apple: Fit for the Blogosphere

It is official: we just received our housing offer from the school! I can say with certainty that we will be living in student housing in the second week of August. The date has been set, the forms have been submitted, the signatures complete. All that's left is to pick up the keys.

Perhaps this doesn't seem a blog-worthy topic to most folks. I wouldn't have thought that a year ago, after finding an apartment in Albuquerque, the first thing I would do would be to write about how excited I was to find an apartment. But in Albuquerque, finding an apartment involves walking into a leasing office, looking at floor plans, bickering over an acceptable apartment size ("those 50 extra square feet will pay off in the long run honey, I promise..."), and handing over a small security deposit and application fee. I think in New Mexico we paid a non-refundable $150 application fee and a $200 security deposit. Which I thought was steep at the time.

Finding an apartment in New York is a completely different animal. And when I say animal, I don't mean the cute little fuzzy chinchilla featured here. Apartments are turned within days in this market, sometimes within hours. Submitting an application is a frighteningly costly ordeal that leaves you riddled with guilt, doubt, and fear. Brokers are rarely people you can trust, and even if they are legitimately good people, you end up not trusting them anyway after you see their fees (which are typically 10-15% of your total rent for the year). And then there's the application fee (sometimes hitting the $1,000 mark) and security deposit (1-3 months rent), after which I don't know how anyone has money left to buy furniture!

Anyway, Casey and I are incredibly fortunate to have student housing as an option, which removes all of the normal nastiness of the NYC real estate market. The only downside -- no pets (I can hear Casey letting out a sigh of relief from here...). For those of you who are interested in viewing our future abode (and maybe your future hotel!), I've included some pictures from the housing website below. I'll post more later when we move in, and until then, stay happy!