i've lived in new york city for more than a decade now and along the way i've learned some lessons
that i think you all need to hear today i'll be sharing seven hard truths about moving to new
york city you don't want to miss it start with one that is something people deal with before
they even move here and it's you're never too old to move to new york city there's this
misconception that it's best to move to new york when you're right out of college 21 22 years old
fresh-faced starting a new career in finance or a creative field and while that is very common you
do not have to be that young to move to new york city i'm a perfect example i moved here when i was
27 and that's considered old by many people that i lived at home for so long i once met a guy who was
in his early 50s and he was living like somebody a lot younger in harlem with a roommate or two
pursuing this dream of being an actor and you are not a failure if you're in your 50s and you move
to new york and you have to have a roommate or two to make ends meet because you're doing things on
your terms as long as you choose to move to new york city for the right reasons or something here
that's drawing you in be it a career decision be it a change of lifestyle you can move here
at any age don't let real estate brokers pressure you there's this stereotype world over that
taxi drivers are the sleaziest profession anywhere you go well i'm here to tell you a lot of new york
city brokers are ruthless this is not any kind of a jab at all brokers in new york because there
are some good ones let me share a story though to illustrate my point i have a friend who's a
broker in new york and many years ago i was in the village meeting up with him and he asked me hey
listen can you stand in front of the door here and when this couple comes up can you say to me hey
i love the apartment i'm gonna put in an application right now something that a lot of
new york brokers are notorious for is pressuring you to apply for a department pretending
that other people are interested if you go to an open house of an apartment and there's a line
of 50 people waiting for it odds are you're gonna have some competition but if the apartment's been
sitting vacant for a month there's probably nobody else applying at the same time and a little trick
is to go to streeteasy.com and see how many people have saved the apartment now the newer the listing
the more likely there is to be a lot of interest in the unit and of course there was the story
i documented on the channel of how the broker wanted me to pay a 200 application fee when the
legal limit is 20 in new york city all i'm saying is don't let brokers pressure you into taking an
apartment that you're really not that interested in space versus location this is a very common
dilemma for people who are new to new york city do you live further away in a neighborhood that you
don't like as much but have a huge space or would you prefer to live in a really cool neighborhood
but have a smaller apartment my advice is especially if you're single and you're young
take the smaller apartment in a better location you can always move away somewhere else to
a bigger apartment or a bigger house but i think part of the fun of moving to new york
city if you can afford it of course is to live in a neighborhood that you're really
going to enjoy i grew up in the suburbs i think space is overrated personally now i'm about to
have a kid that opinion is likely going to change due to that circumstance so when you're single
i always would lean on the better location and my philosophy about being new to new york
is move to the best neighborhood that you can afford and if you don't know what neighborhood to
pick we actually did a really cool video about how to find the right one for you if you're extremely
wealthy you can skip this one here but you'll never find the perfect apartment there's always
gonna be some kind of a compromise it's either too expensive too small or everything is just right
but it's a six floor walk-up the only time i ever heard people telling me they got the perfect
apartment was during the pandemic when prices were slashed 20 30 even 40 percent in some cases heck
i'm somebody that moved during the pandemic and i think we really got an apartment that maybe we
wouldn't have landed at this price or even gotten due to competition in other scenarios with the
average apartment price in manhattan right now at 5 000 a month get that perfect apartment ideal
out of your head just get it out of your head you may not have a dishwasher or laundry in your
unit but if it means i save a thousand dollars a month on rent that's something i'm personally
willing to accept measure everything now if you're coming from a part of the country where houses
are commonplace and everybody has a ton of space i grew up in the suburbs that's what it was like for
me it wasn't such a big deal but in new york city especially apartments that newcomers would move
into tend to be on the smaller side or at least smaller than anything you've ever lived in before
take my desk where i'm filming this video right now i had to scour the internet to find a desk
small enough to fit this little space between two windows if i just haphazardly ordered furniture to
this apartment without being very clear about how much space i had and the measurements available
i would be returning things left and right so when you move to new york city you've got to measure
out every little detail to make sure that your furniture will fit and a little bonus here if you
need ideas on how to decorate this is something that my wife adriana did a tremendous job with go
on pinterest there's so many great ideas on pinterest of how to decorate and design
smaller new york city apartments and you can get your inspiration from other cities like london or
paris for example it is easy to make friends here i have had a lot of people over the years send me
dms to instagram worried about how am i gonna meet friends moving to new york city it's this
big anonymous place there's so many people how is it going to be done i actually find this ironic in
a way because a lot of these people are coming from smaller towns in the united states where i
would be more afraid to move to from new york to make friends areas where people have established
relationships for years and years moving to new york city is like having a clean slate in many
ways there are so many transplants here who are looking for new friends whatever your interests
are whatever your tribe is you can find it here it may take some effort we did a great video a couple
years ago about how to make friends in new york i even used some examples from my experiences of
different groups that i joined you can volunteer so many options out there new york city is an
excellent place to move to to have a new beginning number seven you don't have to live in manhattan
don't get that fomo and i've got a special guest to help out with this point i'm getting bigger so
i can't really go out that much with this weather a lot of people watch these shows on tv friends
sex and the city and things like that and they think like i have to live in manhattan like
that's where everything's going on and i'm not saying manhattan is not a good place but there
are other places in new york that you might like before we moved here i didn't know if i was gonna
like this place i thought it was gonna get bored after a while but you will be surprised brooklyn
has a lot of stuff going on queens has a lot of stuff going on i just want to add that the way
that the new york city subways were designed is everything is going into manhattan from anywhere
you look it's much tougher to go from brooklyn to queens but if you need to go to manhattan even a
few times a week it is super easy i do it all the time show everybody what's going on in this room
little surprise bonus yeah i mean if you follow my channel or if you've seen uh the tour of our
apartment this used to be my office well it's more a baby's room right now we have a changing table
a rocking chair diapers very important yep i've been working on it i think it looks pretty i just
got from on the email new stickers that i made from like new york so i've been working on that
when you move to new york city and realize how expensive life here is
you may want to make some extra cash in this video right here
we share seven side hustles that just about any new yorker can do check this out trust me