Off Campus Student Housing in NYC

In life, there are always new phases worth celebrating. Now the thing about new phases is this: they are new, and when you enter into a new phase it all seems strange and new, and you always need someone to guide you and hold your hand through the process. Or if you’re like me, you study whatever it is extensively and hope all the videos you watched are enough to get you through the awkward phase of newness.

It’s the same thing with getting accepted to college. Now that you have received your letter, what next? It’s time for you to start the program of your dreams in your dream city. This is all you’ve ever wanted in your life! This is a new phase, and you know next to nothing about the nitty-gritty of surviving as an undergraduate in NYC, like where to stay, places to avoid, the best places to get food, and a host of other student hacks. You need guidance, and there are a couple of ways you can get this guidance. You can ask questions, and while you might get the answers you need, you might not get all the details you need to get your needs met. As a fresh undergrad, there are a lot of things you need to sort out, and one of these is housing.

Now this is one issue and it’s a big one — especially in New York — where will you live? This question might seem like one with an obvious answer, as most colleges offer student housing in NYC. As much as some colleges make it mandatory for freshmen to live on campus, it is not always suitable for the situation. It’s hardly ever convenient for a few reasons, and there are not many places you can go to find something that fits your budget as a student. You don’t want to spend all your allowance just to rent an apartment and have to go without food for the rest of the month, do you?

In 2018, there were approximately 1.1 million students enrolled in colleges and universities in New York State. Of those 1.1 million students, about 31% (or approximately 345,000 students) attend college in New York City. There are a lot of students all looking for apartments in the same areas or in the same neighborhood you have set your sights on. That sounds like you have very stiff competition. You can decide to sublet, but that comes with its own slew of challenges. There are over 1,000 student housing buildings in New York City.

There are over 250,000 student housing units in New York City. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in New York City is $3,000. Sounds like a lot, right? If you decide to brave it and live in the dorms for the authentic college experience, here’s what you have to contend with.

1. Noise

Taking up student housing as offered affords you the option of getting a room in the collegedorm. This means that you have to endure living with the most exuberant people on earth – teenagers. Sometimes they can be really loud. It’s a phase of their lives when they want to open themselves up to the world and take in all it has to offer them. It’s a time of freedom, so they get to do things that they’d ordinarily be cautioned about.

One of those things is noise. Though the residence staff tries to salvage the situation, there’s really nothing you can do about the many sounds that come with living in a house full of young residents, such as voices, music, and slamming doors.

Student housing as offered may suppress the possibility of having a quiet, serene environment that is conducive for study or rest for light sleepers. Whereas getting a private apartment outside school can offer you serenity and little or no noise pollution from sources that are almost impossible to terminate in student housing as offered by the college.

2. No privacy

If you’re taking up student housing as provided by the school, then you might as well delete the word “privacy” from your dictionary. Everywhere you turn, you find a crowd: the bathroom, the rooms, the hallway, everywhere.

What’s more annoying is that you can do pretty much nothing about the situation. You even have no say over those who get to share your room! No matter who they are or how they can be, you have to cope with them and their issues. Addictions, rowdiness, OCD, whatever it is. This is a rather major souvenir that student housing as offered by the school comes with, especially the part where your roommate is a surprise package.

You also have to be extra careful about protecting your stuff so it does not get stolen or protect yourself while using public facilities so you don’t get infected.

3. Room checks and laundry struggles

If your independence and freedom are sacred to you, then I see you getting really frustrated by the mandatory random room checks. Dorming operates such that residence staff comes around every now and then to check your rooms and make sure you’re adhering to the rules. This actually helps protect the young adults from themselves and makes sure they’re on the straight and narrow, and not harboring any contraband.

If you thought you were free just because you left your parents at home, well, your R.A is their representative in school. You should also look forward to laundry day frustrations. That moment when all the washers are full, and people are not even coming to claim their clothes. If you’re not rolling your eyes by now, I’m definitely rolling it for you. You should get used to rolling your eyes because you’ll do it a lot on laundry days when you’re doing it in NYC.

I know that feeling, the sinking feeling that’s happening in your heart right now. You were all pumped up about starting college life in a college in New York City, and you were so excited, you had both paper and digital countdowns. Learning about the reality of living in a dorm is enough to dampen your excitement, and I can tell you’re already looking for other options.

There’s a better way to figure out off-campus housing in a great location. This accommodation issue has, however, doused your excitement, and you just need another accommodation option already. This is an unofficial guide to getting the best off-campus apartments for your budget. SharedEasy can help you hack that.

4. Choosing SharedEasy

Whether you are an undergraduate or a graduate student, SharedEasy offers short-term housing options that are perfect for you all year round. We offer a premium service to all our clients. We have lots of student housing options spread in every area throughout New York City and Los Angeles.

The great thing about SharedEasy is the fact that we do not require you to present a guarantor before you can apply for one of our houses. We have rental properties that are conveniently located near subways, cafes, coffee shops, restaurants, and bus stops. Our accommodation options are available in neighborhoods all over NYC’s boroughs — Queens, Bushwick, Bronx, Bed-Stuy, Prospect Park, Greenpoint, Wall Street, The East Village, Williamsburg, Astoria, Long Island, Manhattan near Central Park, Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, Chelsea and more opening up.

You can move in quickly, sometimes within hours of booking online. The process is simple and hassle-free. No guarantors, hefty deposits, hookup fees, or complicated qualifying processes. We cater to students from colleges around New York: Marymount Manhattan College, NYU, Barnard College, Berkeley College, Fordham University, and City University of New York, Columbia University, to name a few. Our apartments are located within walking distance of the universities, stores, buses, parks, public areas, museums, shopping centres and important landmarks in the city like Times Square, The Statue of Liberty, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you’ve travelled to the beautiful city of New York to study, to intern, to specialize in your craft, to receive training, to learn English, for summer jobs, or to pursue your passion project, SharedEasy offers both shared and private rooms, all fully furnished with comfortable common living spaces, designer touches, kitchens stocked with the essentials, laundry facilities, wifi, premium cable, linens, towels, great views of the city skyline — everything you need to move in. Just bring your suitcase.

It’s as easy as that. We carefully vet all our potential residents, and we make sure that none of your potential roommates has a criminal record. We take the safety of our community members very seriously, as we pride ourselves on providing a family away from home for all our residents; one that affords you opportunities to live and work with people with the same interests, lifestyle, and beliefs, so you can learn from each other and grow. We encourage our residents to make friends with each other, and some even go ahead to form a team to play their favorite sport.

We offer you a great deal on all our houses as our rates are lower than average.

5. SharedEasy Services

We offer a variety of options in all kinds of buildings (townhouses, condos, apartment buildings, studio apartments) for every kind of budget. We guarantee the availability of every unit listed. All our listings come with pictures, a map detailing the proximity of the listing to public transportation like the subway system, great nightlife, and all other amenities necessary for life, and access to a virtual property tour. All our listings come with a bedroom (with beds), kitchen, bathrooms, dishwasher, closet space, a refrigerator. Anyone in search of student apartments in New York City is sure to find a place to rent in a building we own.

Our rental prices include utilities, and you can live in one of our properties without a deposit in our Deposit-Free Living program. We can definitely find you a house with a price that fits your budget. All our clients have had great experiences living in SharedEasy’s homes.

We welcome people from every culture and with a wide range of interests; from art, to fashion, to list a few. We offer you comfort in a home away from home. We are always open to adding more diversity of experiences to our homes. We have only glowing reviews from our people. We have the best results, and we are in demand all over the United States.

All the information you need is on our website. To get a place on SharedEasy’s website, you need to send in an application. Applications on SharedEasy are simple and straightforward, without a lot of confusing steps. We send you an offer in the better part of an hour.

Finding student apartments with SharedEasy is a walk in the park, quite literally. Fill a form, input your dates, get an offer from us, and then sign a lease. It’s simple as ABC.