The dream: finding a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment in an elevator building with a doorman in Greenwich Village for $2,000 a month.
The reality: nearly impossible.
The first shock for a first-time renter will probably be the prices.
Consider that the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom in the Village is more than $3,100 and that the average for a studio is just over $2,200. Or that the average rent for a one-bedroom in a doorman building anywhere in Manhattan is close to $3,500.
Alternatively, the renter checks his or her expectations and grudgingly decides to raise the price limit, look in other neighborhoods or get a roommate.
The second shock is likely to be how small a Manhattan apartment can be. It is not uncommon in New York, for example, to shop for a junior one-bedroom or a convertible one-bedroom, neither of which is a true one-bedroom at all but really a studio that already has or can have a wall put up to create a bedroom.
Aside from the realities of price and space, the requirements set by New York landlords are also bound to help turn a bright-eyed first-time renter’s outlook grim. To start with, landlords want only tenants who earn at least 40 times the monthly rent, which means an $80,000 annual salary for a $2,000 apartment. According to census data, more than 25,000 graduates ages 22 to 28 moved to the city in 2006, and their median salary was about $35,600.
Those who don’t make 40 times their monthly rent need a guarantor, usually a parent, who in turn must make at least 80 times the monthly rent. In addition to a security deposit, some landlords also want the first and last month’s rent. Tack on a broker’s fee and a prospective renter for that $2,000 apartment is out of pocket nearly $10,000 just to get the keys to the place.
So the key to finding that first apartment is to learn as much as possible about the market before arriving in the city and also to know that keeping an open mind will make the search easier.
To understand the rental market, brokers and recent first-time renters recommend searching the Internet for listings and getting recommendations from friends who already live in the city. That elusive $2,000 one-bedroom apartment, for example, can be found in neighborhoods like Harlem, Morningside Heights and Washington Heights, probably in a nondoorman building. And the average price for studios is below $2,000 in the East Village, the Lower East Side and neighborhoods north of Midtown.
Alicia Schwartz, a former Citi Habitats agent and director of howtorentinnyc.com, said that trolling the Internet for no-fee apartments had become easier in recent years. The Web site Craigslist, for example, offers no-fee listings by owners, no-fee broker listings where the landlord will pay the broker’s commission and fee-based broker listings.
And while some landlords will accept the combined incomes of two or three roommates, some don’t and will require one guarantor who can cover the rent for all the roommates.
Many landlords require the same level of financial documentation for both a renter and the guarantor, which means a sheaf of personal records that includes tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, proof of income for stocks or other investments and reference letters.
The best time to plan a visit to the city to view apartments is four to six weeks before an expected move-in date. Brokers say that while most recent graduates want to stay downtown and want to look in the Village or in Murray Hill, more reasonably priced apartments can be found on the far east and west sides of town and on the Upper East Side, where there are more large apartment buildings, including Normandie Court on East 95th Street, a building so popular with recent graduates that it is known as Dormandie Court.
This is documentation that many landlords want to see from prospective tenants and their guarantors:
A letter from an employer stating position, salary, length of employment or anticipated start date.
Pay stubs if already working.
Tax returns for at least two years.
Recent bank statements.
Proof of other income, like revenue from stocks, securities, real estate or trust funds.
Contact information for previous landlords.
Personal reference letters.
Business reference letters.
An estimate of the money that renters might need to have on hand to get a $2,000 apartment (* = not always required):
Nonrefundable application fee — $25 to $150
First month’s rent — $2,000
Last month’s rent* — $2,000
Security deposit — $2,000
Broker’s fee (15 percent of the annual rent)* — $3,600
TOTAL — $4,025 to $9,750
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