Property Tales
When it comes to living alone or living with roommates, there's no question about it: Living alone is the best. When you have your own space, you don't have any worries about cleaning up after other people. For me, it's very worthwhile to work at finding a place where you can live alone-even if you have to make a lifestyle change to do it. My advice is to start looking for a place as soon as possible, to keep looking and have a lot of faith. There are nice places out there, so be patient and never give up.
FOURTEEN MONTHS ago, Karen Ali was sharing a three-bedroom luxury apartment on West 53rd Street with two roommates.
"The apartment was spacious, gorgeous, newly renovated. The building was in the heart of Manhattan-convenient for my work, for shopping and the other things I like to do," says Ali. "My roommates were friends and work colleagues. I knew them before I moved in, and liked them very much. I should have been content, but I was really quite unhappy. To be honest, I felt that my roommate situation was coming close to ruining two of my friendships. I decided I needed to find an apartment I could afford to maintain on my own-to preserve the friendships and restore my peace of mind. And I wanted to find a place that would cost me less money, too. With roommates, I was paying about $1500 per month for rent, and I thought that was way too much."
Ali assumed she'd have better luck finding an affordable rental in one of the boroughs. She had friends who lived in Astoria and, following their recommendations, began an apartment hunt in that neighborhood.
"Astoria's an easy commute to work. I used to walk to my office from my West 53rd Street apartment. Living in Astoria requires a subway ride, but it only takes about 20 or 25 minutes, the same amount of time it took me to walk," she says.
"I went to Astoria, walked around the neighborhood, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I liked the sense of space, the fact that it's not so crowded."
Based on her previous apartment-hunting experiences, Ali decided to work through a real estate agent.
"In the past, I'd paid $50 or $100 for lists of available apartments, but I found the lists were useless-scams, really. Friends recommended several real estate agents with Astoria listings, and I consulted all of them, telling them I wanted one or two bedrooms and was willing to pay $1000 per month. I figured I could get something decent for that amount," she says.
For two weeks, Ali checked out at least two apartments daily, but had no luck in finding a place.
"The apartments were holes in the wall-tiny, dark, not well maintained, simply unacceptable," she says. "I was so frustrated, I questioned whether I should or could move. But I was so far into the process, it would've been difficult to stop looking and slip back into the roommate mode."
"One day, I just walked into RE/MAX's Astoria office and asked for help. I didn't know anyone there, didn't have a recommendation. I'd seen RE/MAX billboards around Astoria, and decided to try them just for the heck of it. I said I would pay $1200 per month-after seeing so many bad apartments, my price point went up," she says. "That afternoon, a RE/MAX agent took me to see two great apartments, back to back. The first was a large one bedroom, newly renovated, with hardwood floors. The rent was $1200. I considered taking it, but it had insufficient closet space-you can never have too much closet space!"
"It was ideal, but the rent was $1300. When RE/MAX negotiated the rent down to $1200, I took it immediately," she says. "I love Astoria, the apartment, the space, my privacy and my accommodating landlord."