If you want to rent an apartment in NYC for living and you are searching for a suitable one, than how would you do that? Is there any standard procedure for that?

Well, here is the sum-up of concerning factors for you-

• First of all the obvious thing – upfront cost should be low or no upfront cost at all.
• Same thing about the monthly payment also. Check out the income requirements. You should not spend more than 30% of your income to rent apartments.
• Check out good management and maintenance team is present in the facility or not.
• You need to keep open the relocate option if necessary.
• You may need to check out whether the doors, windows, electricity, water supply, air conditioning system etc. are OK.
• Garage facilities.
• Do not forget about Square footage of apartments and appearance of interior and exterior.
• The next most important thing is security. Often ground floors posses high chances of a break in. And you can never say that this kind of things will not occur in your life.
• Good transportation to work and walking distance to restaurants, coffee shops, bookshops, convenient stores, school, library, theaters, barbers, doctors is essential.
• Good neighborhood is the next thing in the chart. 
• You can think about other utilities like swimming pool, laundry hook-ups, sauna etc.
• Make a spreadsheet to compare each factors of one with another to select the best apartment for you.

These are the main things that you need to take into account before rent apartments. Off-course the requirements vary from person to person. But this is the neat. I hope it will give you a starting point to think.

The following procedure will try to check each points of above checklist. As you are a man you can go beyond this.

Procedure:

Start with researching: You can start collecting information from internet. Search with the keyword “apartments to rent in places ”. Local news papers are another great source of information. Gather all information in a spreadsheet about apartment complex name, address, mail address, contact persons phone number etc. and what ever you get from those sources. It is easy to edit any spreadsheet than paper works. (You can use Open Office as a free tool and a complete alternative to Microsoft office.)

Questionnaires: Create a list of question to ask by phone or mail before personally visit there and narrow down the list of apartments to visit. You can remove apartments from your list which does not go with your budgets or does not fulfill your requirements.
Set of Questionnaires can be -

• How much upfront payment is required?
• How much is the monthly rent?
• How many rooms are in the apartment?
• How many kitchens, both-rooms?
• Which floor, which side?
• What about the management team?
• Do you have maintenance team if required? And who will pay for them?
• Do you allow pet in the apartment?

You can add or remove questions with this according to your requirments.Place all the information in the spreadsheet and make the background color black of the non-qualifying apartment rows to remove it.

Ask for an appointment: Group apartments which are located in close areas. Try to manage appointments one after another with small time difference for each group so that you can save your time. It is great to have an appointment in the weekends.

The hunting: Get out to visit each apartment according to schedule. You should keep some times in your hand to find each apartment. Here, you can check out the transportation systems of the area and check whether the restaurant, coffee-shop etc. are in walking distance or not. While visiting modestly dressed up and be friendly.

Feel the environment: You will get an idea about the environment of apartments by observing the exterior. They will revile positive and negative things to you. These factors are important and strongly suggested to avoid -

• Crowded parking lot.
• Weeds has grown up in the cracks of the building.
• Neighbors with junk on their balconies or on their front doors.
• Neighbors are using blankets instead of curtains on their windows.
• Quarrels and noisy environment.

Checkout the interior: Check out noise of the street coming inside the apartments. Check out whether the doors, windows, electricity, water supply, air conditioning system etc. are OK or not. If white washing is necessary ask them they will do it or not.

Back into research: Put the new data in the spreadsheet. Suitable apartments numbers will fall suddenly. Choose first three apartments for further inquire.

Take an evening walk: After office hour get relaxed, change cloths and take an evening walk to the chosen apartments area. Go to coffee-shop. Talk with peoples. You will get answer from your heart about where do you wanna live next.

Now you can go for an application.
Good luck!