While Ioseftavi and I have NEVER paid anywhere near the rents that the chef in the article is paying, we can confirm that for anyone other than the ultra-wealthy, or those who refuse to even try to stay in a budget for their Manhattan housing, looking for a place to live is COMPLETELY TERRIBLE here. Awful. We looked at about 15-20 apartments before finding our current place. Some of them were appalling. In one the kitchen was so narrow that you could not open the dishwasher door, rendering that enthusiastically touted "luxury feature" basically useless. Trying to look for no-fee listings is ulcer-inducing. Listings are full of out and out lies. One time, my roommate (pre ioseftavi) and I went to see a place advertised as a 2 BR, and when we got there, it was a studio, and the broker told us that for $1500 we could have a temporary wall installed that would divide the (very small) living space into two (unbelievably tiny) bedrooms.
Broker fees are also a huge racket. It's like a tax you have to pay just to live here. Brokers add no value - it's like a protection racket - you just have to pay them to get in the door somewhere, and often your "broker fee" doesn't even cover your credit check - you pay for that separately. I'm practically frothing at the mouth thinking about how the broker who showed us our current place (who, it should be noted, did not even know the name of the landlord to whom I would be making out my cashiers' checks) told us that the broker fee was going to be 15% of our annual rent. We refused to pay that much, which really took some nerves of steel because I was a week away from homelessness when we finally found this place. Even so, the one month's rent we paid her still rankles.
I never feel more sh**-upon by this city than when I'm trying to find somewhere to live. The sneering disdain you get when you tell brokers your budget, combined with the kinds of absolute pits they will show you that are "in your budget" are enough to make anyone feel super poor and super deprived. It's insane.
On the bright side, my pure unadulterated hatred for moving makes a very handy excuse when I get funny looks from spendy coworkers finding out I live in a working-class neighborhood in an outer borough. It's easy and 100% truthful to say, "well we like our place, and we really really hate moving."
I think I need to go do some yoga to calm down after thinking about this.