Apartment Hunting, i.e. I Just Want A Place To Put All My Stuff While I Go Out & Work To Buy More Stuff!

Apartment hunting it NOTHING like buying a new car. When it comes to cars, you can do the research at home, go to the lots, take the cars for a test drive, and examine it up close and personal, and know that few to no butts have touched your brand new car seats. Car buying can be and often is an exciting, pleasurable experience, resulting in a brand-new this-is-EXACTLY-what-I-wanted! Car buying is fun.

Apartment hunting is the exact opposite of that experience. You see a place for 10 minutes, have no idea if the neighbors are 30-decibel gospel-CD-listeners at 2 am, if the washing machine works, or if the water pressure in the shower is more “chihuahua’s tinkle” or “Niagra Falls.” And then you decide almost immediately whether or not to give them your life savings, your social security number, and your signature in blood to live there.

I am in sales. I have been in sales for about 5 years now, and I know all the questions to ask, how to counter objections, and to close the sale. I am nowhere near Real Estate Broker level. I admit this! When we see an apartment, and the broker asks me what I think, I can usually tell them honestly if I just didn’t like it at all. I mean, we all know that there are definitely places we WILL NOT live, but it is a lot more difficult to admit I thought it was at least halfway decent.

Boyfriend: “Yeah, it’s a nice place.”
Me: “Yeah, I like it. Good space.”
Broker: “FILL OUT APP NOW! PLACE GOES FAST!”
Me and BF: “Umm...I’m not sure we are ready to make a decision.”
Broker: “WHERE IS YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE? IF WE GET IT IN NOW, YOU WILL ALSO RECEIVE A BRAND NEW MAILBOX! AND I WILL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND.”
Me and BF: “That’s nice, we are still looking, but thanks, this place is great.”
Broker: “YOU MUST SIGN NOW! THEY WILL TAKE MY FIRSTBORN IF YOU DON’T! AND HE IS MY FAVORITE. I TRIED TO OFFER MY THIRD-BORN AND THEY REFUSED MY SACRIFICE! SIGN HERE NOW!”

And that is basically what happens. I may have paraphrased a bit.

This guy is super creepy. His evil real estate smile is mocking me! So...this is a stock image, if you can't tell. lol

For me, apartment hunting in New York is like nothing else I've done. In Florida (where I am from), you drive to an apartment complex you think you might want to see, you go to the management office and see all the prices for different units, and then they take you to see one of the apartments. The worker who shows you the apartment doesn’t really care if you love it or not, because they are getting paid their $8 per hour whether you take it or not. And you can do this at as many apartment complexes as you’d like. It’s not too bad of a process.

In New York, you basically have about 30 days from your move-in date to look, and you scour things like Craigslist and Padmapper (actually, padmapper is pretty cool. It actually uses Google Maps and shows you the locations of the listings from CL and other sources), and then you have Brokers. And they have FEES. It’s a Finder’s Fee, basically. They find you an apartment, and then they find your wallet and empty it out with a hearty “Thanks! Have a great life!”

And you have a new home. Awww. :)

Some people say the ever-trite "Home is where the heart is." AWWWW THAT IS SO ADORABLE.

False.
Home is where all my crap is. I need some place to store it, and I need a place to sleep, so it just makes sense that it is one place for both. 

Also, I love my crap. MY CRAP is "stuff." YOUR STUFF is "crap." That's how this whole thing works. And I need my books. I LOVE my books and I think they make a home homier. So there.

On the plus side, we have actually seen some very nice apartments in our price range. The further out in Brooklyn you look, the more space you get for your money. As of this moment, we have 2 places that we like. One we are already approved for, but the renovations aren’t done, so we haven’t seen it whole yet, and one that is nice and homey, but we aren’t approved for yet. COME ON, UNIVERSE! We need some good vibes over here!

Anyone have any truly heinous, cry-it-out-hate-my-life apartment stories? Or one of those whoa-this-wasn’t-NEARLY-as-soulcrushingly-traumatizing-as-I-thought-it-was-going-to-be ones?