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Just when I thought apartment hunting couldn't get any worse....
Seriously, I think I'm paying dearly for my luck in NYC and then having great friends who wanted to help me find a place to live. Grrr.
So, we didn't get our dream apartment. Found out yesterday. But I'm trying not to dwell on it, and to instead focus on finding another great place.
Yesterday, we thought we had found it. It's on Electric Ave (and how cool is that? I thought it would be cool to live on Electric Avenue the first time I saw it, last Saturday), 5 rooms, lots of space, lots of character - no parking or dishwasher but laundry in the basement. We were with a real estate broker, so we said we wanted to fill out an application right then. And that's what we did. Applications, leases, deposits, credit checks - the whole enchilada (what a silly phrase, can I say? But I can't think of anything better right now). And it turns out there's good news about going through a real estate broker (the bad news being the fee, or half fee in this case - and most cases, actually): when you fill out an application, they take the place off the market. So that means the owner only has one application set to look at each time, so unless something weird happened (which was not the case with us), we were pretty sure to get the place! You cannot imagine how excited Jamie and I were - we even went into furniture places on our way back to the T (we had ended up in Central Square to fill out the applications). We also ditched our plan to do some strategy planning after looking at that apartment, since they have our money right now (though they won't cash the check unless they're sure we'll get the place). AND, that meant that since we were supposed to find out today, my Ithaca trip was most likely on!
Yeah, and then my bad luck kicks in. I get a call from our broker early yesterday evening with a bit of bad news. According to Brandon (who has only been a real estate broker for a week and a half, but has plenty of people helping him - this would be his first deal, is my impression), someone came through the apartment about half an hour after us (we would have been still filling out the applications and such at this point) and they ALSO filled out an application. I guess that wouldn't be enough time to take it off the market. The owner (who lives upstairs from the apartment and has 2 little girls) likes both sets of applications and so he wants to meet with us. He either got to talk to the other people (2 women, also, apparently) more or he's meeting with both sets, Brandon wasn't clear. Brandon says that it's about 50/50 that we'll get the apartment at this point, but if we turn on the charm when we meet the owner, he thinks we have a good shot.
But yeah. I mean, how likely is it that something like this happens? My impression is that it doesn't happen often. So the meeting is supposed to be sometime tomorrow after work (not sure exactly what time yet). I had decided Friday that if I didn't have an apartment by tonight, I wasn't going to Ithaca this weekend (because even if I do find a place by next weekend, I'm just going to be exhausted from searching this week). However, since Jamie and I have decided to take today off and we wouldn't have done any searching tomorrow anyhow (Jamie normally volunteers Monday nights), I've decided to base my Ithaca decision on the outcome of this meeting tomorrow night. If we get the apartment, I'm going to Ithaca. If we don't get it, I'm not going. Unfortunately, the Formal deadline (REAL deadline, not faux one Corinne set) is today, so I'm out $28 either way. At least I'll get a shot glass out of it.
So yeah, bottom line is that Ithaca is with the fates now and the chances of me going are equal to the chances of me getting this apartment. I might spend the rest of today moping.
- Lizzardie, at 1:26 PM
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