My Lovely Manhattan Apartment (and related expenses)

Since most of my paycheck goes towards my rent, why not blog about my little lovely Manhattan apartment?


I moved to this apartment in the fall of 2006 with one of my college sorority sisters to be closer to work. To turn it into a 2BR, we put up a "flex wall" in the living room to create an 11x12 bedroom, leaving 15x12 for the living room. The flex wall is somehow pressure-fit between our existing walls so that it can be removed when we move out without leaving any damage (vital to getting your security deposit back!) It looks and feels like a real wall, and if you don't point out the seams in the wall panels, you'd never know!

The flex wall cuts off the living room from the windows, so to prevent the apartment from looking like a dungeon when the door is closed, we put in a frosted glass door and some windows along the top to let the light through. It cost a lot more for these 'designer' options, but I highly recommend them if you have to put up a wall that will block all sunlight out of the living room.

The total cost of our 3-year wall lease was $1700, which is about $280/year for each of us. The price is the same whether you keep it for one year or for three years, so I'm getting the most bang for my buck by living here for all three years (no small feat in a city where people move every year like it's a game of musical-apartments). I'm pretty sure I could have built a wall myself for less than $200..... but then I might not have gotten my security deposit back, haha. Oh well :/ The apartment as a 1BR on my own would have been completely unaffordable.

I am lucky to have the real bedroom (even though the "flex" room is quite nice and has a bigger window), which is HUGE. Almost 11"x19"!! I'm the type who fills whatever space is available to me, so since moving into my huge bedroom, I've bought a couple of bookshelves, a desk, and stuffed my old papasan chair into there as well, which is great for tossing clothes onto after a long day of work. I don't think I've ever sat in it.

The rent-share with my old roommate was split $1465 for me, $1235 for her. When she decided to move out to a different part of the city, I advertised the room at $1325 (still well below market rate down here for the size) since I had to buy my old roommate out of her share of furniture, and the new roommate would basically be moving into a furnished apartment except for the bedroom. Because of the ridiculously (ha!) low rent for downtown Manhattan, someone responded to my ad on the company bulletin board within 30 minutes and later that afternoon she was at my apartment, begging to move in. The apt is actually pretty big for most flex-bedroom apartments, because usually when you put up a wall to make the second bedroom, there is no living room left. My living room also has a little dining nook (see above) and comfortably fits a lot of furniture. Currently, the dining table is just used for tossing mail onto, but at least we have one.

I realize that I could have rented out the room for a lot more than $1325, but then my roommate would be paying more than me while living in the smaller room, which I would feel badly about. I already feel badly that I'm only paying $5o more than her for so much more personal space, saving me $90/month compared to what I paid with my old roommate.

Part of the reason my apartment is so "cheap" (compared to market-rates of $3300-$4000/mo for 1BR apts in my neighborhood) is because it's pretty old. I don't have appliances that look like they came from outer-space, and the countertops are (purposely) yellow, but luckily the older buildings have much bigger floorplans, so it's an easy trade for me. The stove works, even if it's from the year I was born and makes funny noises, haha.

My rent is going up 4% when I renew it this October, to $2808/month. Bummer, but last year they didn't raise my rent at all, and I still feel like I'm getting a relative bargain, even if my rent is the same as a suburban mortgage. The new share will be $1430 for me, $1378 for the roommate.

One of the perks about moving here is that I was able to walk into the leasing office myself and apply for an apartment without a broker, which means that I saved a ridiculous amount of money on a broker's fee. Brokers used to charge one month's rent, but now it's common for them to charge 12-15% of the ENTIRE YEAR'S RENT! I have to shout that, because it's so ridiculous to me. 12*$2700*0.15 = $4860 that I would have had to pay upfront to a person just for spending half an hour to show me the apartment. If there are any brokers out there reading this blog, I know that you have to make a living, too, but I don't know how you can justify charging 15%. For anyone moving to Manhattan, I urge you to explore on your own, as many large apartment buildings do not lease exclusively through brokers. On the flip side, many smaller, older buildings only lease through brokers unless you know a person moving out or can contact the manager. Don't get trapped paying a broker's fee if you don't have to! Spend the time to do your own research and leg-work and you can save THOUSANDS of dollars.

As far as utilities go, my building has a VERY annoying policy of buying electricity from the power company and then reselling it to us at what I'm pretty sure is well above market rate, although I haven't been able to find price per KWH for my local power company on the internet, so I'm really not sure. On top of that, they tack on an obnoxious $12.50 service charge each month just for reselling it to us. My power bills range from $70-$150/mo throughout the year for our ~700 sq ft apartment. Crazy.

Cable is another story. We have three cable boxes for two people- one DVR in each bedroom and a regular box in the living room. Did I mention that the new roommate bought a 42" plasma TV for the living room when she moved in? Upgrade! Our cable +internet bill was $165/mo, but I just cancelled our HBO package, which should bring it down to about $150/mo.

In total, my rent after I renew my lease, plus cable and utilities, will run me about $1550/month. Us Manhattanites are willing to sacrifice our paychecks for the luxury of living on a crowded island, but I think it's totally worth it, for now. Oh, did I mention that I can see the Statue of Liberty from my bedroom? If you turn your head to the right and peer all the way out the side of the window...