[tstegart]

Its horrible finding an apartment in NYC. Especially if you're a working professional. Most people don't have cars, and apartments aren't helpfully near each other, so you're spending a lot of time hopping on trains and walking streets. If its the weekend, you're spending a whole day just to see a few places if you need to wait for trains. As you can imagine, any place where giving the super a six pack gets you a set of master keys, people aren't very reliable. Half the time you show up and the apartment is gone, the listing is wrong, or the place is a heap. If you work during the week, you're either running around at night looking for apartments, or by the time you get to the weekend, all your research is out of date. This is why brokers exist in NYC.