How I got my NYC Studio Apartment | Step by Step - YouTube

hi everybody welcome back to my channel my name  is chelsea if you're new here i make new york city  

advice videos actually this is probably the last  video i can make on my apartment prior to this  

video i've made a moving vlog into this studio  i've made how to find a lease department and  

how to find sublets in new york city video and i  also have a studio tour but again this is just my  

experience and yeah i made mistakes along the way  but i'm gonna share with you what those mistakes  

are so that way you can learn from them that's  the whole point anyways i got my computer here  

with some notes that i'm going to be referring  to as well if you don't know i've been living  

in new york city for about five years and i have  moved nine times since i moved here if you're not  

new to my channel that is like old news beating a  dead horse i'm sorry i know but all those living  

experiences prior to this one were with roommates  two of them uh were with a lease one lease i was  

able to secure on my own and the other one i  needed to guarantor and then this is the first  

time i've lived alone and had to go through  that leasing process alone without roommates  

but at the time i was on unemployment so i knew  that i couldn't secure my own lease department  

without a guarantor so if you're not from new  york a guarantor is what a co-signer is those  

two words are synonymous the official definition  of a guarantor is the responsible party that signs  

onto the lease and agrees to take on or assume the  obligations set forth under the lease most notably  

the payment of the rent so it guarantees to the  landlord that they are going to get their money  

no matter what if you don't have an income that's  40 times the amount of the rent of the place that  

you're applying for then you're going to need a  guarantor and i was lucky that i was able to find  

a guarantor that was a family friend that already  lived in new york city and some landlords can be  

tricky with that because a lot of them do prefer  guarantors that live in the tri-state area but i  

have had a guarantor before in my first apartment  that was out of state and it really just depends  

on the landlord but the requirements for  guarantors begin at the guarantor needs to  

make like 80 to 100 times the amount of rent of  your rent i know that is like insane honestly  

that number is so high but it's basically telling  the landlord that they can cover their rent and  

also your rent because i had a guarantor they  didn't run a credit check on me they didn't  

ask for my proof of income obviously i was on  unemployment but before i even started my search  

i had to make sure that my guarantor wasn't going  to back out because this was going to affect what  

type of apartment or living situation i needed to  search for and i really didn't want to waste my  

time because if i didn't have a guarantor i knew i  couldn't qualify for my own place so i would need  

to be looking for sublets or roommate situations  instead and i probably honestly would have just  

stayed where i was living so that was my first  step was securing my guarantor so what i'm about  

to say is probably the most important information  if you were to take anything away from this video  

it's going to be this have your guarantor get all  of their documents ready ahead of time the reason  

why it's so important that you have your guarantor  get these documents together like almost before  

you start even searching for apartments is that  process can go so quick and having your guarantor  

prepared with all their documents before you  search could be the difference between the  

landlord choosing you instead of choosing another  prospective tenant because they didn't have their  

documents lined up like it took them too long  to get everything together when i was looking i  

didn't have this list of required documents i had  some idea because i moved so many times but they  

gave me this handy dandy little notebook blues  clues oh my god they gave me this handy dandy pdf  

that showed the documents that you need depending  on your situation i'm gonna pop that on the screen  

please pause this video take a screenshot of that  save this because no matter what your situation  

is this is going to be so helpful for you it's  what you need if you're employed and you make 40  

times the rent if you're self-employed if you're a  student and if you're a guarantor they're probably  

going to run a background check on your guarantor  and maybe even yourself as a tenant even if you do  

have a guarantor either way what they're asking  honestly is standard for new york state for new  

york city specifically and they might require  less and they might require more but this is a  

good place to begin hey real quick if this video  is helpful for you make sure to give it a thumbs  

up and don't forget to click the subscribe button  okay sorry back to the video so basically i gave  

like a two-month notice to my landlord that i  was moving out of my current place and because  

i also had two roommates we all just kind of had  to decide who was going to say who was going to  

go what was going to happen with the current  place because the lease was supposed to be up  

october 1st if you're in a living situation with  roommates you should tell them as soon as you know  

that you're going to move it's common courtesy  because a couple of them might want to stay and  

sign on again and they would need time to fill  the rooms or you would need to help fill the rooms  

give people notice and don't screw people over  because it's a lot of money an extra month's rent  

is a lot of money and some people can't cover  that and give your landlord as much notice as  

possible as well in case they everyone moves out  and they need to hire a broker or somebody to  

fill the space so since i had to be out of  my apartment by october 1st meaning i wanted  

everything out of my apartment my moving day was  going to be like september 30th because october  

1st would technically be the moving date for the  people moving in after me because my move out date  

wasn't until the 30th starting my apartment search  on september 1st is honestly really really early  

the odds of me finding something were very minimal  at that early on if you want to try and secure  

something that early you're most likely just going  to have to pay for for example the whole month  

of september to hold that apartment because they  could ideally find somebody to fill the space on  

halfway through the month they're not just going  to hold the apartment the entire month and not  

ask for money but i started searching really early  because one i just have chronic anxiety about it  

and two i wanted to see what neighborhoods  especially since covet kind of changed the  

price range with a lot of places in manhattan i  wanted to get an idea on what i was looking for  

and what my price range would be and sometimes  like there are golden nuggets that are like people  

trying to do at least takeover that want to find  someone as soon as possible they're going to be  

wanting to find someone reliable to agree to take  over their space by set date and not need to move  

in any earlier so it just doesn't hurt to start  your search that early but just don't get your  

hopes up honestly and i'm not going to go into  like what you should look for in ads or what like  

my best searching tips are in this video because  i've already done that in my other video on how  

to find a lease department in new york city but  i was using street easy and apartments.com pretty  

exclusively oh as well as craigslist too because  you can find some gems on craigslist again i go  

over that in my other video so in my search for  example we'll just pull up the street easy website  

i would select rentals that's important because  you don't want to i didn't want to buy the  

property and in neighborhoods i selected all new  york city and new jersey new jersey is honestly  

a popular place to live even if you have to  commute into the city there's so many public  

transportation options and a lot cheaper rent as  well i selected my maximum price to be 1500 and  

then i selected studio and i never selected the  no fee option because i just didn't want to limit  

the amount of units that would come up what no fee  means is that you don't have to pay the broker fee  

which is a certain percentage of your annual rent  so it can come up to like a few thousand dollars  

extra that you just have to pay the broker and  no fee means that the landlord covers the cost  

of the broker and you're not responsible for any  of that all you have to pay for is the deposit  

which is usually one month's rent and the first  month's rent so if the perfect apartment came up  

and it was cheaper like under my budget but it  had a broker's fee i would consider that apartment  

because if it's everything i'm looking for i don't  mind paying the broker's fee because it evens out  

my rent is a little bit cheaper i'm paying  a broker's fee so it evens out to my budget  

but again i didn't want to limit my options so i  didn't select that button so my search would be  

getting no fee and the apartment and feed feed  feed apartments and possibly apartments where  

you'd have to pay a fee and and this is what kind  of why i'm sharing this experience with you is  

because i do get anxiety about not knowing where  i'm gonna be in a month like i don't want to get  

to the last week of september and not have a place  to go it's honestly just a risk because sometimes  

in the last week of the month that's when the best  deals come out because the people who are looking  

to fill these units are scrambling for people to  move in on the first and they're going to try to  

entice people to do that but my anxiety would  never let me wait that long especially for a  

release department maybe for a sublet but because  i had a guarantor i also needed to coordinate with  

i wanted to allow as much time as possible and  because it was the end of the lease at my previous  

place i wanted extra time to get myself out so i  decided to look for something for a move in the  

middle of september and that means that i would  have to pay double rent for two weeks but honestly  

i was okay with that and i was even more okay  with that if it was a no fee apartment because the  

money i would spend on the broker i spent paying  double rent so i had like technically two homes  

for two weeks the beginning of the second week of  september i found a place on street easy that is  

this place and the ad was stating that they  were looking for someone to move in mid-month  

and so i was like let's do it a really  important thing to do is to call the number  

of the broker or whoever listed the apartment  don't email don't press like the requested tour  

because you're just gonna get lost in the sauce  and it's so rarely that brokers get those phone  

calls and that really shows that you're serious  about it that's what i did i called the number  

i left a voicemail and i ended up getting a  text like within a couple hours scheduling a  

viewing for this apartment for the following day  so let me just say again that it's imperative you  

have all your documents in order before you  even view the apartment because once you go  

view the apartment that process it's up to you  honestly whether you succeed or fail if you walk  

into that apartment like i did here and was like  this is it that's it then you want to get that  

ball rolling you don't want to sleep on it there's  no time to sleep on it i think after i viewed this  

place i ended up calling my guarantor afterwards  i was like standing outside the building  

and was like i think this is it i think this is  the one and there was no broker's fee and i was  

like all right we're doing it so 20 minutes  after my viewing of this apartment i called  

my broker and i was like i'm doing it that night  she sent me all the documents that i needed that  

like golden ticket list that i showed you earlier  she sent me that i know it gets so so stressful  

in this time because you're not the only person  applying honestly new york brokers are notorious  

for having multiple people apply at one time and  i think there were like three or four other people  

in line with me and i just happened to be the one  to view the apartment first because i called the  

broker that's why it's so important get your foot  in that door so once my guarantor's documents were  

in we had to i had to figure out how to get the  deposit in the first month's rent to the broker  

or to the landlord basically in my case i just  didn't have the best of luck because because  

my landlord was requiring requiring because my  landlord was required requiring the payment to  

be either a wire transfer or a check and i did  not have checks at the time if i had checks at  

the time it would have saved me a lot of a massive  headache because the bank i have is pretty archaic  

and they don't allow wire transfers online and  i had to wait until the next day to even get the  

wire transfer that process going so i was like the  first in line for the bank the next day but having  

to tell my broker like hey i have the money can't  get a tea until the next day and she was like  

um she basically like could have dropped me at  that point they're not going to pursue me as an  

applicant if they don't have that security with me  if they don't have my money they're not going to  

want to take me as a tenant which i understand  so because my bank is archaic af my wire transfer  

didn't even go through until the next day so  for 48 hours my broker is just pissed at me  

and i'm like i didn't know that you didn't he  didn't accept like venmo or zell or something  

so basically i think the only reason they didn't  drop me was that it would be too much of an issue  

to get somebody else into that application  process at that point since they already had  

my guarantor documents as and also like just  good faith like i had been really communicative  

with them this entire time i was checking in with  them like twice a day even if i had nothing new to  

report just to let them know that i was still  here that i wasn't trying to flake that i was  

really serious and because of that they didn't  drop me as applicant and i don't know how that  

how that worked but i'm very grateful that it did  because once they got that money they were able to  

send me the lease virtually and i read that thing  read your lease read your lease i know the brokers  

are going to be rushing you to get everything  signed everything figured out but take the time  

to read the lease and i'm not paralegal i'm not  a lawyer of any sort so none of this is legal  

advice but if something rubs you the wrong way you  have all the right to amend parts of your lease  

keep an eye out for also a clause that's like your  guarantor has to guarantor you for the rest of  

your life or something i'll put the wording on the  screen so that you can see kind of what that was  

and my guarantor is like hmm that's sketch because  i only legally want to be responsible for her  

financially for one year because that's the  amount of the lease but the wording in the  

document was like you need to be able to cover her  for the entirety of forever or for like the next  

10 years or five years and i've seen that pop  up twice like both times i've had a guarantor  

so watch out for that and they've amended it  both times so i feel that lisa asap i think i  

used either docusign or hello sign both of those  were free and i did my virtual signature i saved  

it as a pdf and i sent that along with all the  rest of the documents i needed to my broker and  

that process was done and a side note your lease  is not binding again this is not legal advice  

whatever but your lease is not binding until the  landlord signs it and i honestly didn't know that  

until my best friend was going through her own  really stressful apartment searching process they  

signed their lease they had all their documents in  they were approved and their landlord just pulled  

out within like a week before they were supposed  to move and he was legally able to do that because  

he didn't actually sign the lease with them so  even though they signed it it wasn't a binding  

document until he signed it and then he backed out  and it screwed them over and that was awful but  

just keep an eye out for that just because he  signed a lease doesn't mean that it's official yet  

and ideally i really wish it worked out where  you don't give them any money until you get the  

keys that's what i was taught and in my in my  experiences leasing an apartment outside of new  

york city you go to a lease signing like with the  landlord and it's like a swap like you don't leave  

until you get the keys they don't leave until they  get your check but new york city especially during  

covet a lot more things are happening virtually  and it just gets really tricky with the timing so  

it's a stressful risk i know and i felt really  stressed i didn't really sleep until i got my keys  

at that point i was like i'm moving but something  could happen like i just was so stressed out that  

they would back out or that something was wrong or  that my guarantor would be like nah i just needed  

the keys to know to feel that it was official  but in entirety that process usually takes like  

one to two days so it really happens fast  so you can see how it just really comes  

down to like good timing good preparation good  preparation and honestly just some good luck  

it can really feel like the odds are against you  sometimes i got lucky that i only had to work on  

applying for one place i was never an applicant  that was like now we chose someone over you  

there can be a lot more layers on top of it but  just do your best to stay organized try not to put  

all your eggs in one basket too until you give  someone your money or you get the keys to some  

place always be on the lookout don't like stop  searching until you get the keys always prepare  

for the worst to happen but worst case scenario  usually happens is like you have to stay on your  

friend's couch or you know there are options  for storage units too if worse comes to worst  

sublet options as well if something with the lease  wasn't working out so it's your responsibility to  

never leave yourself with nowhere to go and i  know a lot of you moving to new york city don't  

know people but there are options for airbnbs you  have a lot more control over the situation than  

it may feel like so get those documents in order  i basically just spoon-fed you the golden ticket  

good luck and if you have any more questions about  my experience or the process please let me know if  

i can't answer then hopefully someone else reading  the comments will so if this video was helpful  

for you please please give it a like share this  video with anyone share the entire new york city  

playlist with anyone give me a follow on instagram  dot cal and as always make sure to subscribe  

if you haven't already thanks for watching  everybody and i will see you in my next video bye