I started my annual search for a new apartment (I’ve looked the last two years and ended up staying in the safe, rent-stabilized, glorified-dorm room that is my apartment), by viewing three different 2 BR’s in the East Village / Lower East Side area, and let me tell you, it’s a good time to rent. The struggling economy has lowered rents by $500 - $800 per month. All three apartments we saw were no fee, and two of them offered “one month’s free rent” (What?, I practically had to beg people to show me an apartment 12 months ago, and now they’re giving away free rent). Landlords are absolutely TERRIFIED about the economy. The broker practically offered me a free reach-around if I would just rent an apartment from him (no thanks sir, I’m holding out for a better offer).

So the moral of the story is, if you have a stable job and some money in the bank, it might be a good time to upgrade your digs.  I plan to buy a monocle and top hat and act extremely condescending to all the brokers/landlords I meet (”Dance for me, peasants, it amuses me). Because apparently I’m the only person left in the city who has a job.

The only thing left to decide is whether it’s time to leave Manhattan (Nooooo!!!) and make the jump to Brooklyn for more space, or take advantage of the bad economy and get a slightly smaller, livable space in the city. The places we looked at tonight weren’t huge, but they were substantially bigger than places in that price range last year. The search continues . . .