Moving to NYC...is an epic pain in the @$$

After months of anticipation, Jonnie and I (Kelly) will be moving up to New York City in August so that I may begin a job with the public accounting firm, Ernst & Young. To keep track of everything we plan on seeing and doing in NYC, we decided to create a blog. We're hoping that it will serve as both a personal journal, and a medium through which to communicate with our family and friends that will be miles and miles away.

Before we can become pseudo-New Yorkers, we have to find our NYC home. As such, we'll be heading up to the City next Monday, June 25th, to find maybe not our dream apartment, but one that will provide a roof over our heads, allow Jonnie some space to spend hours on his laptop, and house both my shoe and book collections. Though we're not particularly picky about a living space, or really even the location, finding an apartment in any of the New York City Burroughs has proven to be more of a royal biotch than I ever could have imagined.

Firstly, the rental market for apartments functions similarly to the market of homes for purchase - except on speed. Listing sites have dozens of apartments, the composition of which changes daily. Because of this, we had to wait until a mere 36 days before we move to start looking for a home. Even worse, we will only be able to book a few listing appointments before we arrive in the City, as the apartments we have been eyeing all this week will likely be off the market before we even set foot off the plane. For someone who likes to plan any and everything, this can be painstakingly frustrating.

Further, landlords in NYC demand basically an entire life's worth of paperwork and your soul before they will lease to you. I've collected a pile of bank statements, tax returns, pay stubs, employment letters, reference letters, cancelled rent checks, forms of identification, asset statements, cover letters, and my left pinky toe to turn over to the lucky landlord that shows us our future home.

Our plan is to have a lease signed by June 29th, our last day in the City, and to be moved in by August 3rd. I'll be posting next week from the Hotel Deauville, hopefully in a state of euphoria because every apartment we had seen was amazing (though I foresee a lot of scary small, dark, and depressing apartments in our future). In the meantime, you can check out our NYC to-do list that we would like to complete before we move to the next city. Wish us luck!