Hey all, just wondering if anyone had any of you knew some good apartments that are commutable to either LGA or EWR by train or bus. My ideal budget would be ~$800/person

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You’ll probably have your best luck on Craigslist.

wondering this as well

Good luck with that.

You can find good 2-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn and Queens for $2,500-$3,500, which would get you within your budget if you had 3 roommates. As far as finding roommates, your best bet is definitely Craigslist.

If I were you, I’d look for something in central Brooklyn (Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, etc). You’ll be within about 1:15 of LGA and JFK and within two hours of EWR, all via public transportation.

Roomi App/website works great.

In Bed-Stuy/Fort Greene/Bushwick might be the best

You can search for single rooms to rent on trulia, zillow, naked apartments, rent.com, hotpads...

That $3500 number that was thrown out was almost certainly for Manhattan which is not particularly useful.

Watch out for broker fees. It's very common and usually 1 month of rent for the real estate agent to walk you through the property once...

Yeah I've started looking on the NJ side and there's a lot that are way more in my price range. I actually have 3 friends that want to move with me so I already have roommates, I think our best bet with 4 people is renting a house, I've found quite a few for 600-800/person.

Thanks for the tip about brokers fees, I didn't know that was a thing. Are those only charged by large rental companies or basically anyone?

With that I do have another question. If I lived in the outskirts of Newark, would it be best to keep or sell my car? Most places I've looked at look like I could take the train to EWR in an hour or so. Most places only have street parking so my worry is I'd have to end up parking 6 blocks away and I get mugged on the walk home.

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As far as broker fees go, they're probably more common with individual apartments. Sometimes brokers will advertise apartments that are in big complexes that already have a sales office - I have no idea why. Be sure to go directly to the sales office if you're interested in a place in a large complex to avoid the fee. I didn't do that so don't be like me.

If you want to have a car it all depends on where you live and what they charge for parking. Plenty of people make street parking work but be sure that you have all the right stickers and registration or else they're going to tow your car. Places closer to the city will charge $200-300 a month for a reserved spot. You can take a lot of Ubers for that much....but getting an Uber out of Newark can - and frequently is - a nightmare. I've waited for over an hour to get a ride because the traffic was so bad. The ride share option is good for balling on a budget.

I've never actually taken a train to EWR because it just ends up taking too long with the transfers. Hopefully someone can add their 2 cents on how that goes. I have the automatically recharging PATH and subway cards to get around the rest of the city - a bit of a pain to set up but worth it.

If you're going to live around Newark be sure to see it in person first and I'd recommend looking at the crime overlay on trulia. Newark has some pretty rough parts so you should be cautious.

Otherwise, living around here is pretty good. It's definitely not for everyone and completely understand why. The taxes are nuts and it's expensive but it's been a good experience on the whole. Plus, with our flight benefits it's easy to get out of here when you get sick of it. Bringing a few buddies with you should make for a good time.

Try looking up Morristown NJ. It’s a young professional’s town so you’ll find room share opportunities on Craigslist. It’s an easy drive to Newark.

A more expensive version of the same kind of town would be Hoboken.

Spare yourself the headache of living in Newark and stick to the nicer areas