NYC APARTMENT HUNTING as a 17 yr old college freshman! (prices, tips & apartment tour)

[Music] my everything you say gets [Music] think of all the things that he gets to do but he's in my shoes and you know it's true [Music] hey guys welcome to the long awaited not really long awaited because i don't think y'all knew this was coming apartment hunting video let me start by telling y'all apartment hunting manhattan is literal hell i am born and raised in queens i think i'm pretty in tune with like the fast-paced nature you know i've been to manhattan but i've been around but y'all the three months that i spent apartment hunting i literally felt like i was in the hunger games instead of like competing for survival or competing for that overpriced five by five rat infested square box it's not it you know [Music] the people who are going to be living in the apartment is me and my two older siblings we all go to school in manhattan the reason why we're looking for an apartment instead of dorming is because it is so much cheaper i did the math and it would cost us about 50 000 more to actually dorm in our schools so obviously this is the most ideal and viable option and also because of the pandemic the median asking price for rent went down by 700 since the start of last year so we wanted to take advantage of that [Music] the first thing is location there are three of us living in the apartment two of us go to school uptown and one of us go to school downtown so we had to find an apartment that was equidistant between both schools like midtown east midtown west upper east side the second thing is transportation we're students and we're living here because we want to be closer to school so obviously there needs to be a mode of transportation in walking distance which is not really that hard to find being in manhattan there's a train station or a bus stop at every corner the third thing is the layout we wanted to find an apartment with at least two bedrooms there are three of us and we wanted to have that separation it would not go well if it was a studio and lastly we have your basic necessities like having a grocery store nearby we also wanted to make sure that there was a mosque nearby and it was in a safe neighborhood stuff like that you know [Music] so as for our budget we mainly looked for apartments that were 2 500 a month and below it's expensive but we are splitting the rent so let's talk a little bit more about apartment hunting and the requirements stuff like that i'm not an expert but i will talk about what i learned along the way if you want to come out here you have to be very prepared you have to be able to make decisions very quickly also be really cautious there are a lot of people out here who want to scam you one thing i recommend is googling the broker and the company that the apartment is associated with you know look at reviews stuff like that the second thing the requirements for apartments in new york city the occupants have to make at least 40 times a monthly rent or they can have a guarantor like a parent or a relative that guarantor has to make at least 80 times a monthly rent to make sure that you can pay your bills on time but if you don't have that luxury or if you're like a student then you can actually hire an outside guarantor it'll cost like about 10 to 20 a month basically they'll fulfill those requirements and you can rent an apartment [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we actually toured four units at the first apartment the first unit we saw was a two bedroom one bathroom the unit was a little bit out of our price range but it was a two bedroom so we thought it wouldn't really hurt to take a look walking in the first thing we saw were the bathroom and kitchen which were fairly spacious and big enough for the three of us they were also in really good condition you can tell that the unit was very very well kept but then we walked into the main living room and i was it was just it was not it you know it gave off a really like scary and dark vibe it's probably because it used to be a tenement but i just it was just not an environment that i could see myself studying or waking up and filming videos in the windows faced a brick wall meaning that we received no sunlight we were touring this apartment around the afternoon and that's when the sun is at its highest and even though the snow was at its highest it still didn't stream sunlight so it definitely was not the greatest i immediately knew that i did not want to stay here i mean you could turn on the light you get some lighting there but the light was a very ugly orange yellowish tint that just made everything worse so i just it just we i just did not like this apartment the bedrooms were not any better one of them was very fitting for one person but the other bedroom was just a literal box i felt like it was a little bit too small for someone to be living in there also both bedrooms had really bad lighting we ended up not applying to this apartment after that we headed up to the second unit which was a one bedroom one bathroom and it maybe it was because i was deprived of light in the last apartment but immediately when i entered this apartment i loved it the unit was so bright there were two big windows in the living room and it just streamed so much light throughout the room it was also very peaceful and quiet because we were a few stairwells up now as for the layout it really gave me that like homey feel because of the long hallway and then you have like the open living room i also like the kitchen it had like its own little space and it was big enough to fit the three of us which is really rare in new york city units but we ended up not applying to this apartment because it was a one bedroom and there were three of us so then we toured another one bedroom one bathroom and we were hoping that it would have a more like closed off layout but again it was a very open layout so we weren't really sure about that but y'all let me tell you the kitchen i feel like the only thing you'll need to know about this kitchen is that it had a vent over the stove i have never seen i mean it's probably because we've been touring like apartments that were in our budget but i have never seen a kitchen like this in manhattan where there was an actual like vent over the stove like they don't really they don't really give you that luxury but this apartment is the bathroom they had that frosted window sliding door for the bathtub that's how you know like the renovators were not playing it was just it was so nice it was so nice entering in the bedroom it was basic bedroom you know the windows were really nice it streamed in a lot of sunlight i feel like it was giving off the same vibe from the last apartment except that kitchen and that bathroom they were pretty nice but again we didn't end up applying to it if we were to get a one bedroom one bathroom i feel like it would be the second unit that we saw then we crossed over the hallway to look at the third apartment which was a two bedroom one bathroom we were pretty excited for that because that is what we wanted so immediately when you enter you actually step over this level because the kitchen is elevated which i thought was really nice you know you get to take your shoes off there i don't know i really liked it i don't know something about that just like wow this is nice there's also a closet next to the entrance which gave off like a really nice homey vibe you could put your umbrella there your codes before you leave the kitchen was very spacious so you can fit like a dining room table but the only thing was that there was no sunlight or natural lighting which i honestly thought was okay because i only needed my bedroom to have natural lighting and plus there were these really cool like studio lights so it was pretty nice but i didn't really like the floor it was a little weird the floor had like a different pattern than the living room and the bedroom which was really odd but i mean it's a manhattan apartment so you get what you get there wasn't a lot of natural lighting in the living room but it wasn't as bad as the first apartment like it wasn't really giving me like scary vibes there were two bedrooms the first one on the left was really big and it had this beautiful brick wall accent that i was obsessed with i love when apartments have like that exposed brick wall i feel like it adds a really nice touch to the room and it makes it look really vintage and aesthetic and it's so cool to work around when you're decorating your room the bedroom actually had decent lighting although it wasn't the best i could tell that if i filmed videos there it would be enough lighting for my video the other room was a little bit smaller it could only fit one person again i had that really beautiful brick wall accent which i really liked so if we were to live in this apartment it would be the two of us in the bigger room and one of us in the smaller room i i don't know i just saw myself living there the bathroom was also pretty nice maybe i was just biased because of the brick wall but it was nice it was nice the only downsides to this apartment though is that the fridge was burned and there was no connecting countertop to like cut vegetables or prepare food but it was big enough the price was good for two bedrooms so and we actually ended up applying to this apartment this was probably my favorite part we got to see like the outside behind the building there was a beautiful garden with plants lined up and i could really just see myself like studying here or just relaxing here eating lunch or breakfast in the morning and then she let us through this tunnel where she showed us like where to take out the trash and everything and because we applied to this apartment we decided to walk around the area and look at the stores and look at which bus or like transportation we would take if we were to get the apartment 101 express it was a nice area and apartment to apply to concrete juggle where so a couple days later we headed to an appointment in the upper east side again [Music] we only toured one unit this unit was a two bedroom and it was within our price range so we decided to check it out it was next to a really nice floral shop on a residential street the unit was on the first floor which meant that there were no like stairway we had to climb up because the last few apartments we were climbing up so many stairs but the downside is that since it was on the first floor everyone could look inside the windows of the bedroom and watch you so it wasn't an ideal situation there was a living room and two bedrooms spacious enough in my opinion to fit two people each however the kitchen connected to the living room so if someone were to sleep in the living room and we had our own rooms then they wouldn't get any privacy that was one of the downsides another one which is just my opinion i hated the kitchen floor it reminded me of like a a chest a chess board and it just it wasn't it it wasn't it wasn't nice the design was really ugly it was just it was hideous also the landlord requirements were not requirements that we could fulfill so we ended up not applying to the apartment which i was thankful for because the kitchen floor was so ugly really bad our next appointment was in the midtown east [Music] this apartment was very popular a lot of people want to be in the midtown east it was on a very busy street a lot of outdoor seated restaurants it wasn't like this really gentrified area which i didn't really like but a lot of people do like that so there was a decent crowd in front of the apartment that we were touring the unit that we toured was a two bedroom one bathroom y'all it was it was amazing i could see why there was a crowd of people outside because the unit was so nice it was undergoing renovation i think it was just finishing up the layout was so perfect for the three of us there was a kitchen on the left and a bathroom on the left so like a small hallway and then the living room was separate from the kitchen there was an entryway into the living room so it was big enough for the three of us to have our own rooms the sunlight streaming through all the windows just entering in the apartment and it just felt so like warm and bright and happy the design of the apartment was really nice and sleek the bedrooms were really spacious the windows overlooked a really nice area it was honestly my dream apartment i really really like this one hello boba it was five floors up and no elevator so um it took a while for us to reach the apartment but i think it was worth it i don't really mind the no elevator thing the only downside that was like an actual issue was the fact that it was 50 minutes away from our school uptown which is just way too long if you commute from queens it's like an hour and 30 minutes so it didn't really take that much off of our commute but we felt like it was too good of an apartment to give up we actually ended up applying to this apartment what is the old man what's the old man at youtube around me [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for our next appointment we headed back up to the upper east side and we toured this two-bedroom one-bathroom unit it was in this residential area there was a park nearby the mosque nearby there was like a really nice hint of culture in the surrounding neighborhoods the complete opposite of the midtown east just like the last apartment this apartment was also on the top floor so by the time i got there i was so out of breath oh god ina this is too much help i'm calling the police the thing i hate about manhattan apartments is the fact that it's so hard to find an affordable apartment with an elevator i almost died for the vlog like the apartment will have like 20 floors and it'll still not have an elevator moving in it's like a hassle but yeah that's just a pet peeve that i have like stairs i can't do stairs i can't do stairs i saw my life flash before my eyes anyways when we entered the apartment the first thing i saw was that brick accent wall i i don't know what about it but it's just i get so excited about like decorating the room because of the accent wall so i was a little bit more biased about this apartment because of that anyways the price was really good for the amount of space in this apartment the kitchen was really gorgeous it had this nice like renovated sleek modern look to it it was a little wonky though because the oven was not on the same like countertop as a sink and the fridge and all that which was kind of weird but there's always gonna be something wonky about a manhattan apartment and unit so it didn't really matter to me as for the two bedrooms they were a little smaller than i anticipated the price is really good for a two bedroom but one of the bedrooms was a literal box and i felt like you couldn't fit a bed in there a little bit concerned about that but honestly it was a really good price in a really good area so we ended up applying to it afterwards we just like walked around [Laughter] me and my sibling kind of got lost [Music] okay so at this point it's mid-july and we applied to two apartments so far the first apartment we applied got accepted but we were a little bit too late in accepting the offer and signing the lease by the time we agreed that we wanted that apartment someone had already signed the lease and it was taken so we only had one apartment left which was the one in the upper east side with the mosque nearby we submitted the application we were waiting on our status but there was miscommunication about the whole guarantor situation so we ended up losing that apartment too which is really sad because we all really like that one so we were apartment-less and we had to move in in mid-august so we were kind of like freaking out um we had one last apartment to see which was also in the upper east side so we went to check out that apartment [Music] so this last apartment was located near a school and it was in like a mix of a residential slash like commercial area there's a lot of like restaurants and also a hotel across the street this apartment was actually on top of a restaurant of course no elevators so we climbed five flights of stairs to see this unit they're exploring but it was so worth it in the end because upon entering i knew that this unit was the one i could literally see myself living here it had amazing lighting and was by far the best apartment and unit in terms of layout so each room had its own separate area so the kitchen was not conjoined with the living room which meant that a person could sleep in the living room so technically there were three bedrooms which was so good for the price that it was at since the kitchen was its own area it was a little bit more spacious and the three of us could fit in it the bedrooms were big enough for one person to sleep in each which is so much better than the last apartment because the last apartment had two bedrooms but one of them was like a literal like box that i don't think could fit a bed so this was way better the bathroom was also nice for like a full-size tub it was honestly like a dream come true and i knew off the bat that this apartment was the one like i could see us living here having our own room also the broker told us that the landlord liked having students at the apartment because they were really good tenants and they were quiet and all they did was just go to school and come home and study so obviously we were really advantaged in that area we were students so when we applied we ended up getting accepted and surprised this that was the apartment that we ended up getting just it was just good vibes all around oh my god oh my god oh no it's stuck in there move can't even get oh we got it just in time we moved in like early august so now it's like mid-august i start college in a week and i'm just by the time this video is up i probably already started college but i'm just really excited for the adventures to come and just like living in a whole new place living with my siblings being able to get that feeling of independence and i'm also really excited to make more videos here and make more content stuff like that thank you guys so much for watching i hope you enjoyed and found this a little bit helpful and i'll see you guys in my next video bye guys [Music] oh [Music] yeah i'm exhausted okay god damn bread hold on hold up this is stuck in here can you take this i'll take it out hold the camera oh it's gone can't even get to the apartment there are people living here [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: studychaii

Views: 74,041

Keywords: #study, #stationery, #studying, #pens, #student, #school, #studytube, #studygram, #journal, #bujo, #bulletjournal, #satisfying, #notetaking, #notes, #lifestyle, #studyblr, apartment, lifestyle, fashion, newyorkcity, nyc, apartmenthunting, adulting, teenager, teen, livingalone, manhattan

Id: hdD0FojhYww

Length: 20min 27sec (1227 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021