The Hunt

Time Out New York just released its “Find Your Perfect Apartment” issue. Of course there’s no perfect apartment in NYC, especially in the West Village (our personal favorite area and also the most sought-after neighborhood by everyone we know or know of, including Natalie Portman, Brooke Shields, Blake Lively, SJP, etc.) In fact Time Out doesn’t even feature a West Village spot in its story. The mag couldn’t find “the one” in the West Vill.

But we did! After hunting for two tiring weeks, Justin and I finally found an apartment that’s perfect for us, despite its imperfections (like the building’s slightly mildew-smelling elevator and lime-green elevator doors). But really we are just thrilled to have an elevator at all! If you know New York real estate – prime West Village real estate to be exact – you know elevators are hard to come by. And a few seconds of dankness in-transit is a small price to pay for a relatively low-rent large one-bed in the heart of the West Village. Our new gut-renovated apartment is situated on a tree-lined street in a lovely, quiet neighborhood that is just minutes away from the best restaurants, bars, shops, gyms, bike paths, etc. Do I sound like StreetEasy? That’s not surprising considering the amount of time I’ve spent reading apartment descriptions in the last couple of weeks.

StreetEasy is a great tool for apartment hunting and I highly recommend it. Its images are, for the most part, accurate depictions of its listed apartments (unlike craigslist). And the brokers listed on StreetEasy are – in our experience – truthful. Yesterday I loitered around our new building and harassed the tenants, confirming with our new neighbors that mice will not be a problem, nor will the building’s surrounding construction projects. No rodents and no loud noise? Sounds perfect enough.

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