I was recently looking for an apartment in New York City.This is my second attempt at NYC living. The first time I tackled New York was in 2004 when my then-boyfriend and I gave up our adorable and spacious $900 two-bedroom apartment in the chic Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles for a $900 teeny tiny and sunless one-bedroom apartment in the chic Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. While my friends envied the “sweet” deal I scored on the ultra hip Bedford Ave, I resented the cramped, loud and sometimes smelly building I now called home.After a year we moved down the road to the lovely neighborhood of Greenpoint. While our apartment was much larger, the location was much further from the subway and our friends.And after another year we moved even further away from the subway and our friends. We moved to Boston.But two months later, I found myself spending more time on the Fung Wah Bus. than I did in my huge two-bedroom plus dining room plus backyard plus laundry in the basement plus parking spot, house. Every other week I was couch hoping across NYC. Even though I had moved to Boston, I didn’t live Boston.So this week I went apartment hunting in the city I love/hate so very much. For anyone who has taken on this heart-breaking task, you know that it’s basically like having a second job. It involves a lot of time checking out apartments in ‘hoods that brokers promise are “up-and-coming” even though your gut tells you it’ll be 5-50 years before those twelve check-cashing places on the main road turn into chic lounges. It requires a knack for de-coding the scams on Craigslist, and not wasting your time driving 45 minutes to meet with an advertised no-fee broker who ends up only having broker-fee apartments available. And it absolutely involves having an imagination so strong that you can creatively justify why a shared 300 square-foot space is perfectly do-able.Sadly, the rental rates have increased dramatically since I was in NYC full time. My once $1100 railroad in Greenpoint now rents for $1600. The real estate buying market sucks so more people are renting than ever. Even tourists are struggling to stay in the city, with hotel rates sky-rocketing and travelers seeking out rooms far-out in South Brooklyn to get a ridiculously pricey $300/night deal!At the end of the weekend my husband and I had to decide between two places: a $1750 (an amazing price!) rent-controlled smallish one-bedroom, 5th-floor walk-up in the Hells Kitchen ‘hood of Manhattan with an additional broker fee of 11% of the annual rent or a $1600 larger two-bedroom, 1-floor walk-up back in our old ‘hood of Williamsburg Brooklyn (this time with lots of sunny windows).We opted for the later. After some quick calculations we figured out we will save nearly $4,000 next year by taking the Brooklyn place which we can then put into our “dream-condo” fund. We can also keep our car (street parking) and we can have enough space to hopefully keep far enough apart from hating one another.However I have to admit, I did get pretty excited about the prospect of living in Manhattan. I assume it’s the dream of most metropolitan folks to live in the heart of the city rather than the shoulder or elbow. I just really liked the idea of staying out too late with my artsy friends, swigging beers in our local bohemian brew house and singing sweet songs about our hopes, dreams, and struggles…oh wait that’s the musical RENT.Well let’s just hope this blog gets widely read which leads me to a book deal and then my book gets made into a movie which I also star in and produce and I get paid an insane amount of money allowing me to snag a swanky Village loft worth millions!Or maybe I can just be happy with my new, affordable, pad two stops out of Manhattan.Better yet, maybe I can be happy I even have a home to sleep in during these cold winter months.I wonder where I’ll be living when this 1-year lease is up? I mean, I wonder where I’ll be living in 525, 600 minutes?

To help the homeless (and I mean really homeless, not starving-artist-looking-for-a-cheap-apartment “homeless”) visit http://www.nationalhomeless.org/