Apartment hunting – day 2 – the end of Farnsworth

Yesterday we met with Farnsworth Bentley from one brokerage firm and Denis Leary/ Gary Busey from another. Today’s broker was a team effort. We started the day by heading down to Chelsea and meeting them in their office. We filled out all the initial paperwork and went over what we were looking for. The woman (I’ll call her Abi…because that’s her name) looked through listings and short John Stamos (I’ll call him that because that’s what he looked like) took us around to show them to us.

It is important to know at this juncture that I received a phone call during our meeting with Abi and John. The call was from Sky Management, the company who operates the building in which we applied to lease. The message they left informed me that we had not gotten the apartment that we had wanted, but we had been approved for the same basic apartment, but on the fourth floor. I don’t remember if I mentioned last time that there were two listings in that building, so I’ll go ahead and do that now. There were two listings in that apartment. Both rooms looked very similar, but one was on the second floor and the other was on the fourth floor. We put on our application that we wanted the second floor, but we would take the fourth if we couldn’t have the second.

So anyway, we then set out to look at the first apartment with John. During our trip from the office to the first listing, Farnsworth called both Karie and myself twice. We decided that we would not return his call until we saw a couple of places with John since we weren’t sure what we’d be seeing. We walked into the apartment and immediately knew that we wanted it. All the listings that we had seen yesterday were okay at best or downright awful at worst. This place was fantastic and we knew it right away. It was a first floor apartment and it was huge. The bedroom windows overlooked a small garden-ish area and it was overall just a great place. We told John that we liked it and he told us that we had to act quickly. Other people were looking at it and if we wanted it, we had to get on it immediately. John was not one to mess around so we began running at full speed down the street to find a cab to take us back to the office so that we could get the paperwork in motion.

Funny thing about running around New York. It’s hot. It’s really hot. As a matter of fact, while we were in the cab, we were listening to the radio. After talking about Castro, they did the weather report. As of that moment, the temperature was reported as 91 degrees, with a heat index of 109 degrees. Yeah, we were sprinting down the street in 109 degree weather. It was awesome…

We got back to the office and began our paperwork, but we were told that someone else had put in an application before us. It was close though, so we still stood a good chance. By this time, however, Farnsworth had left several more messages on each of our phones. This was difficult because we knew that we wanted the place that we had just seen, but we didn’t want to lose the other place if we needed it. We decided that we would go back out and look at a few more places before getting back to him.

We headed down to the East Village and ended up getting lost looking for the apartment. This was absolutely miserable because it was just so unbearably hot. We were all sucking down water like it was our job, but we couldn’t seem to stay hydrated. It was really really hot…

By this point Farnsworth had called several more times and was telling us that he couldn’t hold the apartment much longer. He said that the management company was going to start showing the apartment to other people again if we didn’t sign immediately. I called him back and told him that we were running all over town looking at places, but we didn’t want to lose the apartment. I asked him to hold on to it for as long as possible and I’d get back to him as soon as possible. You know what he said to that? He hung up on me. Can you believe that? For some stupid reason, I thought that he would be an advocate for us. I would have thought that he wanted our commission. Apparently not.

We eventually found the place that we were looking for and it was really bad. The shower was in the kitchen and the bathroom was a toilet in a closet. It sucked so we moved on, but we had wasted a lot of time and effort. The next stop was the Upper East Side and we looked at one rather lackluster apartment. We expressed our dismay and quickly moved on to one on 95^th street. This was about as high as we were willing to go, but it was worth a shot. It was a second floor walkup, but it was fairly nice. It wasn’t big by any means, but we liked the location, the apartment was doable, and the rent was around $400 cheaper than any of the other places we had seen. We decided on the spot that we wanted this place as our backup if the apartment from the morning fell through.

Again with the urgency, John called Abi and we raced into an internet café across the street. Abi faxed us the application and we filled it out and faxed it right back. We were really pleased with the speed and efficiency of this broker. At this point, we felt confident that we had sufficient other options, so I called Farnsworth to tell him that we didn’t need the other apartment anymore. Since hanging up on me, he had called several more times. He had changed his tone and was trying to be nice again, but the damage was done. I cut him loose. We then left to go look at more places…

We took a look at one or two places that didn’t excite us and were left with only one more apartment. John told us that this next place wasn’t actually showing yet, but he had talked to the tenants and they had agreed to let us look around. It was located on 84^th and 2^nd, which is right by where I’m staying now and it’s a young, fun neighborhood. We walked into the apartment and immediately fell in love. It was amazing. It cost $5 less per month than the place from the morning, but it was probably twice as big. The girls living there now had turned it into a three bedroom, but it was really a quasi-railroad style two bedroom. Karie and I walked around looking at the rooms and discussing what we thought. We didn’t want a railroad style, but this one we decided could work. When you walk into the apartment, you’re in a big room. To the back is the kitchen and the bathroom and in front is a large communal space. There are two doors on the far wall. One leads to the converted third bedroom. The girls told us that they thought it was meant to be a large closet, but they had turned it into a bedroom. The other door leads to a large room with a huge closet and tons of cabinet style storage space. Through that room is another large bedroom. Karie told me that she would be willing to take the small closet/bedroom as long as she could keep her clothes in the middle room with the giant closet. She said that she lives in as small of a room now and her only necessity was the closet. I told her that conditional to that offer, I would be willing to take this apartment.

We walked back outside with huge grins on our faces. The place was amazing. It was huge, in a great location, and on the second floor. (We were so sick of fifth floor walkups, especially since at this point it was 99 degrees without the heat index) John called Abi and set the wheels in motion. We then headed back to the office. By the time we got there, Abi had already filed our application. She told us that we had lost the first apartment of the day to the application before us, but we had a good shot at the place on 95^th and we had an even better shot at the place we had just seen. She told us that since it wasn’t actually showing yet, no one else had seen it. No one else had put in an application on it. She said that there was really no reason that we wouldn’t get the apartment, but we wouldn’t know for sure until we got approved. She said that we should know by noon tomorrow, so here’s hoping for the amazing apartment.