Photo by Gabriel Beaudry on Unsplash

Studying in NYC soon? With all the excitement this new beginning can offer, no doubt you may be feeling a bit of anxiety regarding finding proper student housing.

The New York City real estate market can move at very fast rates, and depending on where you search for housing, you can see hundreds of listings for rooms, units, apartments, and even hostels come and go in a blink of an eye.

However, with a bit of preparation, you can find a great place to stay even at this pace. Check out Reservation Resource’s survival guide for finding student housing in NYC:

1. Find Your Roommates and Divide and Conquer

Unless you are thinking about living alone (and can afford it), chances are you are going to be sharing a place with at least one roommate. If you have some friends that will be moving to NYC at the same time or people who are already here, it’s much easier to reach out to them and begin searching for a place together.

This way, you can find a new place faster, and assess more of your options if you divide tasks between you.

2. Consider Your Budget

NYC isn’t known for its affordable accommodation (quite the opposite), but there are great options available. However, it’s much easier to find the right place when you have a budget to guide your search, so consider how much you can comfortably spend on rent every month.

3. Know the Location

Unless you’re opting for student housing on campus such as the college dorms, it’s very likely going to be difficult to find a place to stay right next to the school. However, NYC has some great transportation options, particularly the subway, so be sure to check a listing and how accessible it is for you to comfortably get to your classes on time.

You can use tools like Google Maps to test how long it may take to get to school from your student housing. The tools can provide an estimate both for walking, driving, and public transit, so definitely check it out to see how accessible a listing is!

4. Watch out for Scammers

Unfortunately, scammers are very much present in NYC real estate, especially on personal ad sites where these people can easily post a listing without it being vetted. If searching on other directories doesn’t pan out, be sure to watch out for these common tricks scammers use:

• Finding excuses not to let you see the room before you agree to rent it;
• Grainy, older photos which may not reflect how the place looks now;
• “Too good to be true” places

Over to You

If you haven’t found student housing in NYC yet, Reservation Resources has many options in the Manhattan and Brooklyn areas! Check out our vacancies now, or reach out to us online for more information.