Thursday was an admin day – we got some banking and phone related stuff done in the rainy morning and then went on to buy a pair of sneakers for Alex, who got tired of walking in his heavy Redwings leather boots. We went to our new home once again to take some measurements of the floor plan and had lunch at a little Thai place close to Union Square.
At this point a small recap and word on how “apartment hunting” works in New York:
First of all, the market moves quickly – listings usually don’t get posted on commonly known websites such as Streeteasy or Zillow earlier than 30 days before they will be rented out again. Good apartments are usually gone within 3-5 days. When moving to NYC from another country there is no need to start looking for apartments from your home country in advance. First, there is currently enough inventory on the market and second, you do not want to rent a place without seeing it before (we come to that later).
Once you find an apartment you like based on the pictures or description provided you either ask for a viewing or attend a so-called open house (basically a public viewing). We highly recommend looking at the apartment in person before you commit to anything. Pictures are typically heavily processed and brightened up since many apartments are very dark. Also, its sometimes worth visiting apartments that do not have pictures in the description!
Picture shown online 
Light conditions in reality
In case you like the apartment, the next step is to put in an application containing all of your details (passports scans, visa scans, employer letters, proof of income, bank statement, recommendation from your former landlord, and so on – ideally you bring this printed out to the viewing and give it to the broker right away). However, an application does not come for free, we are in New York City, right 😉 So each application costs between $80-120 per person. The application fee is non-refundable, meaning you must decide wisely if you want to apply or not. Once the application gets submitted, there might be an additional background check and then you either get the apartment or you don’t. An additional hurdle when looking for the apartment of your dreams could be that you need to earn 40-44 times as much as your monthly rent.
To include some fun activities (mostly for Alex) our next stop was the Harley Davidson dealership in Queens. We took the subway there and “tried” on some bikes. However, for Franziska the bikes were way too heavy and for Alex most bikes were too small. So far, Triumph still triumphs in our ranking.
