How Do You Find an Apartment in N.Y.C. These Days?

It’s not an easy time to find an apartment to rent in New York City.

In a city where renters make up two-thirds of all households, rents have risen more than 30 percent between January 2021 and January 2022, according to the online listing site Apartment List. Early pandemic deals and promises of one month free have vanished, affordable housing is as difficult to find as ever and renters are facing intense competition to snap up apartments as soon as they are listed.

While this makes it difficult for people who need to find a new home, people are still moving, whether they’re trying to find housing in the city for the first time, moving in with a significant other or just switching neighborhoods. We asked readers to tell us how they managed to find a home in this difficult market.

The submissions have been lightly edited for clarity.

‘I really slipped back into my 20s.’

Paying $900 a month for one room in a five-bed, two-and-a-half-bath apartment in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

I had been living with a good friend until she found a rent-stabilized one-bedroom and decided not to renew our lease, which was up in March 2022. This was a couple months before we even knew what the rent increase would be. Our rent would have gone up 33 percent, which is insane. I’m a travel nurse so I’m only in town six months or so out of the year. I couldn’t justify the cost of paying that increase!

I took to Craigslist and found this tiny tiny tiny little room in an established apartment with four other female roommates in their 20s and 30s. They are actually great and the apartment is pretty big. But I feel like I’m living in a youth hostel and I’ll be 33 this summer. I feel like I really slipped back into my 20s in a very unpleasant way!

My biggest challenge: I probably emailed 25 or 30 people in the last couple weeks of my housing search. Two responded. I saw both units, and chose the one that felt best, even though there were so many roommates.

It took a lot of compromising. I got rid of so much of my stuff to fit in this tiny bedroom. My commute is longer and I’m farther from Prospect Park. A lot of compromises were made. But my rent is under $1,000 a month in a cozy, tree-filled neighborhood, which was an important goal.

— Rebecca Sullivan, 32

‘I had been applying to affordable housing for years.’

Paying $712 for a studio apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

I’m a Marine Corps veteran and I had previously been homeless for over a year. Then in 2013, I lived in a Supportive Housing community run by the Doe Fund, a nonprofit organization. The supportive housing building offered vouchers under the Housing Preservation and Development Housing Choice Voucher program, which allowed me to participate in the affordable housing lottery. I applied for the voucher and received it during the pandemic. I had been applying to affordable housing for years before, applying to every place I thought looked good enough for me, which was literally hundreds of places.

I had to find a landlord willing to accept the voucher program, even as the state mandated that they couldn’t discriminate against those renting under it. But I eventually signed my lease with the…