I really don’t like moving. I really, really don’t like moving within New York City. You would think that I would be used to the rental market having lived here practically half of my life. You would be wrong. When it comes to real estate, I revert back to my Virginia roots. There, if you could afford the apartment/house and had good credit, then it was no problem finding a great place in a nice neighborhood. Not so in New York City…
Oh well, we need to move. Michael is going to be in Kindergarten in September, so we’re moving to an area with a great public school system. Right now, we’ve narrowed our options down to the Riverdale area of the Bronx or the Forest Hills section of Queens. We put in an application for a place in Forest Hills a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the management company failed to let us know that we were the “backup” applicants in case the other applicant fell through. I didn’t really love the apartment, so I wasn’t too upset. I was more upset about our wasted time and that we were charged a $175 fee for something that was already taken. (Fortunately, the fee was returned.)
Now, we have an application in on another apartment. I like this one much better and it’s five blocks away from one of the best schools in the NYC educational system. We’ll see what happens. We went to see the apartment on Saturday and to meet with the owners. Our real estate agent is on the new side, so I had very specific questions. (I’m not “cheap”, but if you give me the impression that you’re playing loose with my money, my finance background kicks in!) By the end of our meeting, we had signed a lease. (That really means nothing though. Until we get the keys, everything is still up in the air.)
In any event, the whole moving process is a bit draining. Paperwork, finances, packing, etc. was starting to get to me. It’s so funny what pulled me out of my funk – food with my family. After signing the lease, our family took a walk around (our potentially new) Forest Hills neighborhood. There are so many great food places there! Since Michael had a taste for a cheeseburger, we went to this place called Cheeburger Cheeburger. It was just a burger place, but the service and food was so good….look:
After eating and joking with “my guys”, everything seemed a lot brighter. I had a better perspective. As long as I’m with them, I’m at “home” (no matter what our address turns out to be).