Better the Thermometer Than the RENT-O-Meter!

Yep, a New York City heat wave’s truly amazing ability to turn all forms of matter—animal, vegetable, mineral, gaseous (I’m looking right at YOU, gaseous!)—sticky, stinky, and angry should have earned it an honorary Law of Thermodynamics all its own by now. But until that day when every physics textbook is rewritten, only those who’ve experienced soaring temperatures in virtually any NYC neighborhood really get what the Lovin Spoonful meant when they sang:

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

The good news is that heat waves are only a few days out of the year. Not so the monthly rent you agree to pay when you sign a lease on an apartment. So how do you know whether the amount of rent you’re locking into for a year or more is the dollar equivalent of heatwave? According to the New York Sun—the newspaper, not the gaseous fireball that has unleashed its brutal wrath on NYC this week—just consult the Rentometer.

To see how the rent you are being charged for your studio, one-bedroom, or multi-bedroom apartment compares to what your neighbors are paying for similar apartments in similar buildings, just enter your address, apartment size, number of units in your building, and voilá! The Rentometer will read low, median, or high.

Keep in mind, however, that while the Rentometer bases it’s readings on actual rents being charged in any NYC neighborhood you enter, it’s still a fairly blunt instrument. For example, the rentometer doesn’t consider whether or not an apartment is in a doorman building, has appliances and luxury amenities or if it has bullet holes, rat turds, and free-standing toilet in the kitchen. The rentometer also cannot gauge what might might personally value in an apartment, so if that free-standing toilet in the kitchen is your one must-have, than you might be happy to pay way over the neighborhood average for the comfort and convenience of washing dishes while you pee. Also, rent stabilized and controlled apartments in many neighborhoods may skew the median far below market rate for newly rented, renovated apartments.

The Rentometer is brought to you by Rentomatic.com, a company designed to bring greater transparency to navigating the real estate market for renters and buyers as well as landlords and sellers. Rentomatic also offers services—not all of which are available in NYC yet—designed to facilitate communication, financial transactions, and “feeling the love” between tenants and landlords. It’s a San Francisco-based company so we’ll have to let that last one slide…

Still sticky? Stinky?! ANGRY?! Hang in there!

Cool town, evening in the city

Dressing so fine and looking so pretty

Cool cat, looking for a kitty

Gonna look in every corner of the city

Till I'm wheezing like a bus stop

Running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop



But at night it's a different world

Go out and find a girl

Come-on come-on and dance all night

Despite the heat it'll be alright

Lyrics: The Lovin Spoonful, “Summer in the City” (1966)
Image: NASA, Multiple solar flares on the surface of the sun

Noise Will Be Noise!

Jonathan Prager is a funny guy—“ha-ha” and “strange.” A professional comedian and singer, Prager admits to the New York Times:

“I’m sensitive to noise, emotions, electromagnetic vibrations. You name it, I’m sensitive to it.”

And while navigating the NYC real estate market is never easy, and any single horse in Prager’s personal trifecta of pathos could make finding the downtown Manhattan apartment he sought tough, you'd reckon the severity of his noise allergy would make living in almost any NYC neighborhood an unending nightmare of acoustical anaphylactic shock. He tells the Times:

“[Y]ou know how they use [white noise machines] in therapists’ offices? I have to ask the therapist to turn them off, along with their computers — there’s a little fan inside most computers that goes on and that’s annoying — and their air-conditioners. And then I can’t concentrate because there is always construction noise. […] Music playing in the house or a car makes me agitated. […] I have to leave the house if my girlfriend blow-dries her hair.”

Sorry, Ladies, apparently he's off the market. For now.

But professional soundproofers hardly need to rely on such rare acoustic canaries as Prager who insist on living in the noisiest coal mines in New York to keep eggs on their tables. The soundproofing biz is ka-booming. Even seasoned New Yorkers who know to expect a certain amount of noise and/or can easily adapt to different sounds in the urban environment have their limits. And once that threshold—be it high or low—is breached, acoustic engineer Anthony Grimani tells the Times, anxiety sets in:

“You hear something, and flight or fight kicks in and you wonder what or who is creeping up behind you. You think, ‘Is it going to eat me, should I run?’ Sound is putting you in an evaluating condition all the time, and I would say that’s no way to live.”

Noise issues don't seem to dampen the blazing NYC real estate market very much, but trends in the NYC real estate market can help to explain the increase in noise around town. The incessant demand for housing has brought major construction sites and renovation and conversion projects into otherwise quiet residential neighborhoods. The Department of Environmental Protection enacted a new stricter noise code for construction projects in July of 2007, but no one can seriously expect any power tool in the pneumatic family to suddenly become neighborly. [I'm looking at you, Jackhammer—grrrrr!]

The good news is, the Times reports in another article on noise in the city, that the intrusion of construction and most other noises from the street—car horns, sirens, garbage trucks, voices, etc.—can be reduced by 95% by the installing laminated windows.

Another trend in NYC real estate that has affected noise polution in the city is the increasing number of families with small children who are moving to NYC in general, but who are seeking out "quieter" neighborhoods in specific and effectively destroying the peace of other residents with the thudding racket of little feet, the clatter of hurled toys, boo-boo-related screeches, and the ever-popular combo package: the temper tantrum. Complaints of child-related noise have even eclipsed complaints related to music in recent years.

For parents averse to incurring the resentment of their neighbors—although that wouldn't be an accurate description of any of the parents interviewed for the Times article that reported on the child-noise trend—the Times also published this related article on how parents can minimize the transfer of the clamor of their little darlings' good times to their neighbors' bedrooms and private spaces.

But fear not! There are lots of fixes for noise issues in any of the articles linked to above, but here's yet another Times article with excellent suggestions on how to avoid a noisy apartment, condo, co-op, or brownstone in any NYC neighborhood to begin with!


The Dream of Absolute Quiet [NYT]
The Noise Children Make [NYT]
Laminated Windows Keep Out the Din [NYT]
Getting a Handle on Apartment Noise [NYT]
A Place to Play the Piano Forte [NYT]
Checking Out the Noise Level [NYT]

New York City Summertime Festival-Fest!

If you’re relocating to New York City for the first time or simply moving from one NYC neighborhood to another, you might find yourself wondering whether you will be leaving the good times behind you forever…

But fear not! You can’t throw a rock in any NYC neighborhood without having an even bigger rock hurled right back at you! And, if that’s not your idea of a good time, then you’ll be glad to know that you are highly likely to have hit a festival of the fun variety with that initial pebble you lobbed, so follow that "ping". While this is true year round, summertime in NYC is especially one big, non-stop festival-fest and fun-fair.

So while your apartment hunt might sometimes be a drag, there's nothing in the NYC real estate play book that says you can't check out different boroughs and 'hoods when they are at their most festive. Here is a teeny-weeny fraction of some of the fêtes going on this summer:

MANHATTAN
Downtown NYC River to River Festival, May 28 to September 15
World class performing arts festival with free performances throughout lower Manhattan.

New York Shakespeare Festival/Plays in the Park, May 27 to August 31
Pack the right picnic, blanket, friends, and waiting in line for tickets in Central Park is half the fun.

New York International Fringe Festival 2008, August 8 to 24
Fringe Jr., Fringe for families.

BROOKLYN
Celebrate Brooklyn! June 12 to August 9
Celebrating 30 Summers of Free Performances at the Prospect Park Bandshell

Afro-Punk Festival, July 2008 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
Celebrating black revolution and change through music, film, art, and a temporary skate park.

Coney Island Film Festival 2008, September 26 to 28

QUEENS

Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival, August 2 to August 3

NYC Food Film Festival (2nd Annual), June 14 to 20
Watch movies about food on Water Taxi Beach then eat the stars.

Colombian Independence Day Festival, July 20

BRONX
Festival Popular Duartiano, July 18 to 27
Music and Carnival Rides and Attractions

17th Annual Bronx Day, July 14
Music and family entertainment at the New York Botanical Gardens.

STATEN ISLAND
First Annual Staten Island Comedy Festival—The Grand Finale, August 7
[I love Staten Island, but isn't this just waaay too easy?]

Richmond County Fair, September 5, 6, and 7
Staten Island Historical Society

Let’s Face It: You’ll Find Your NYC Apartment Faster If You’re WIRED!

If you’ve been playing the blood sport that is NYC real estate for more than a nanosecond, you’ve probably already learned—the painful way—that the most indispensable piece of protective equipment you’ll need to stay upright in the field is a big, steel-reinforced cup. But once you’ve got that essential bit of armor strapped snugly over your tender emotions, you can calibrate your priorities to those of many professional athletes and make your highest priority staying wired all the time!

Traditionally, cafés with free Wi-Fi were the popular destinations for top Brooklyn condo and SoHo loft draft picks out to sate their voracious appetites for both caffeine and internet access. Recently, however—perhaps in response to the public's increasing disgust with performance enhancing drugs in general, or wait staff’s increasing exasperation with the dwindling tips due to slow table turn-over by the laptop set—cafés offering free internet access are increasingly restricting the hours during which you can troll your broker’s site for apartments.

That said, as one might imagine, staying wired in most NYC neighborhoods is easy—if you know where to go... Cafés may be changing their ways, but many bars are all too happy to pick up the slack and to be your home hunting “hot spot.” Lolita on the Lower East Side is comfortable and quiet during the late afternoons and even has coffee so that you won’t have to alter your performance enhancing drug regimen too drastically. Eater.com recently published this map of bars that offer free Wi-Fi and they are updating it as per readers’ nominations of deserving places to add.

Tawk, Gawk, and Order Cawffee Like a Native

If you’re doing it right, your search for a new home should take you through NYC neighborhoods you probably never visited before. If the very thought of the ground you’ll be covering exhausts you, just be glad you’ll be slogging your way through a city as rich in sounds and sights as New York.

Depending on the neighborhood, you’re likely to hear a wide array of accented English. Keep an ear out for the homegrown variety. You never know, you just might find your dream apartment in a neighborhood where everyone speaks the same musically lilting version of Brooklynese that Bugs Bunny made famous throughout the English-speaking world. Follow the link beneath this map that was published in amNew York for an acoustical tour of NYC neighborhoods’ dialects. Wordorigin.org offers a brief survival guide for the local lingo that's definitely worth a quick scroll through. If you're dying for caffeine, knowing how to order a "regular" coffee anywhere outside of a chain store, might just save your life.

And why not make your travels even more interesting with a scavenger hunt for public art? NYC has long been known to nurture the talents of artistic outlaws deep within its dark underbelly. Although you're unlikely to ever see them plying their trade--unless you, yourself are up to no good--shadowy graffiti artists' signature pieces can be spotted throughout the city. Sure, “artist” doesn’t apply to the vast majority of narcissistic jerks who scratch up subway windows or tag surface imaginable, but some have generated a fan base and even parlayed their property crimes into professional art careers. Gridskipper has published a field guide to some of New York’s best known guerrilla scribblers dodging the law today.

How To Talk Dirty To A New Yorker

Despite the uncertainty in the real estate market elsewhere in the country, the New York Post reports that a number of buildings in NYC are offering perky perks and sweet, sweet swag to tempt potential buyers to indulge.

Some buildings allow buyers to charge their down payments on their American Express cards, which can translate into all sorts of goodies through reward points. Said one flushed and giddy buyer:

"[It] was quite shocking… When I was getting ready to write out the check, I was just joking around and said, 'Can I put this on my card?' They said yes. It worked out to a $1,000 gift certificate at Saks."

Down payment on a 0ne-bedroom in Mid-Town: $90,000.
$1000. Giftcard to Saks: priceless

Real estate developers are also getting into the pot-sweetening game. All you have to add is the throaty whisper.

Buildings are picking up closing costs. Or they have on-site mortgage brokers who will instantly approve you for a mortgage - and shave points off your rate. A few require just 5 percent down. Some are throwing in a washer/dryer or a parking space.

Hmmm… So after all this romance will there be the real estate equivalent of a Crying Game-type surprise like, say, no bathroom? Nope. But, according to one developer, the sweet talk might be the seller’s tactic to move things along:

"[I]t's new developments that are priced a little higher than they should be, or the developer wants to get rid of the last few units. You get concessions not from the beginning, not when they first start up - it's when they want to get the business wrapped up.”

Don’t worry. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t as good for them as it was you.

“It’s more than just fluff.”

Things Get Harry at #1 Morton Square

Residents of the most fashionable, high-end NYC apartments have made an art of being unimpressed by the celebrities next door, even when the inevitable hijinks ensue.

After all, enduring the deranged shrieking of a high-profile nervous breakdown or stepping over the burnt-out candle stubs and puckered photographs of an impromptu shrine are minor inconveniences when compared to the sharp increase in real estate value that inevitably befalls a building brushed with greatness[NYM].

But what can residents of #1 Morton Square expect when young Daniel Radcliff moves into his $4.9 million, three-bedroom corner digs [NYT]?

Best known for his role as Harry Potter in the enormously popular movie franchise, some news sources are playfully speculating whether Mr. Radcliff’s new neighbors will have to steel their nerves for an influx of mythical beasts and otherworldly creatures--but that’s just silly, of course. With Amy Poehler and the Olson twins already living in the building, residents of #1 Morton Square have been dealing with an elf problem for a while now.