Apartment Hunting

Finding a place to live in New York City is no easy task. I have to move out of the dorms by May 16th, so the girls I plan to live with (Celia and Laura) and I started searching Craigslist and others about six weeks ago. We viewed nine apartments over the course of three weeks and almost signed on two of them. Unfortunately, we kept running into the same problem: financing. Most NY apts. require that your annual salary is 40x the monthly rent to qualify, and the average rent per person is $1000. Since Celia and I don't have jobs yet, we depend on student loans but those don't count as income for these housing companies. We could get a guarantor (aka mom or dad) to sign with us, but guarantors are required to make 80x the rent. Ouch! After much frustrating searching and viewing tiny expensive apartments in run down buildings, I found a listing on the NYU off-campus housing network for a house in Brooklyn for six people. I called for fun and found out I was the first person to call about the listing in three weeks. That night, I went with several friends to see the place. It was awesome!

The house has six bedrooms, two kitchens, two living rooms, two bathrooms, a basement, and a backyard :-) It's owned by a couple who live in Long Island and their son and his friends live there now (NYU undergrads). The house was redecorated in the 70's so it has all kinds of crazy paint work and lighting.





One of the kitchens has a red light that runs above the cupboards! We fell in love with it, applied and were approved. Yay! Because the house is owned by this friendly couple instead of a big New York real estate company, the paperwork was much easier. Also, since it's so big, Celia, Laura and I asked some friends to fill in the extra bedrooms. Three of our friends from the publishing program (Dustin, Mark and Sharn) decided to move in with us. They're taking the first floor, and we're taking the second floor.




The living room upstairs has this funky mirror wall. We're excited about embracing the 70's theme and making the house as fabulous looking as we can.





I felt so frustrated after our first attempts at getting a place. I tried to remember that God would provide something for me, and that He had something planned. It was difficult having to pass up on the first apartments we thought were so great, but waiting and trusting God proved to be a greater blessing in the end, as it always does. I'm so excited about this great house, and the fun neighborhood it's in, and the great deal that it is, and the friends I'll get to live with. And, did I mention the backyard!! Truly, this is an awesome blessing and answer to prayer.