Goldilocks and the 3 Apartments

This is my fourth apartment hunt in New York, and with the economy and housing market the way that it is, I have been looking forward to reaping the benefits for some time now. Housing prices are falling and previously unaffordable neighborhoods are now instantly within our budget. Este and I found ourselves dreaming of a 3 bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side with stainless steel kitchen appliances, a washer/dryer, with large closet space and a balcony all for under $2000 a month. I know, I know, a little ridiculous but we wanted to see how much we could get for the cheapest possible rent.

These are desparate times for brokers. Every single one I met with had at least 4 apartments to show. In the past, the broker would be half an hour late to show a single apartment. There'd be at least 3 other groups interested in the place. After we were given a brief tour, the broker would turn around and ask who wanted to fill out an application, the first person to raise his/her hand would get the apartment and the rest would go home feeling used and dejected. Now, they start drooling as soon as they find out you have a job.

So--with the ball in the renter's court, we set out to find the perfect apartment, the apartment where I will be a wife and Este will be a husband and we will be married (hopefully to each other). Maybe it's because we had so many choices or because our expectations were too high, but whatever it was, we could not make a decision on anything. One apartment was too big (not kidding), one was way too small (not surprising), one had the stainless steel appliances but was missing windows, and one had an elevator but no living room. As we realized that space was more important than anything else, the trendy neighborhoods turned into the don't-make-eye-contact neighborhoods. We even considered a luxury hi-rise apartment in Harlem because there was a hospital nearby. (So what if the neighborhood is bad, if one of us gets shot, at least we know where to go!)

It felt like serial dating. We'd meet with different brokers every night, lead them on into thinking we really liked the apartment, then not return any of their phone calls after changing our minds. We'd meet with brokers at the same time or back-to-back until one of them would suspect there's another person in the picture. Then we'd have The Talk. "It's not you, you were great. We're just really indecisive. Can we still be friends?"

We finally found a place that meets most of our requirements and is within our budget and (don't worry, Mom) the neighborhood is safe. The new landlord has already taken our application fee and security deposit, so there's no way we can change our minds now without it getting ugly. And it's a good thing too, because brokers all across Manhattan have blacklisted this Couple from Hell.