Welcome to It Happened One Weekend, our weekly roundup of The New York Times real estate section...
Every "The Hunt" column begins with the Hunters describing the apartment they want, and ends with them rationalizing whatever they came away with. This is The Hunt: Dreams vs. Reality
The Hunter: A medical student looking to rent
Price
Dream: $1,500/month
Reality: $2,165 /month
Neighborhood
Dream: Park Slope
Reality: Crown Heights
Amenities
Dream: 1BR, short commute
Reality: Studio, short commute, washer-dryer
Summary
This weekend's Hunter is a recent Vassar grad (please, no Vassar bashing) and current medical student taking classes at SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn. After living in a studio on the Upper East Side and seeing her rent skyrocket, she decided to move to Brooklyn, hoping to find an apartment closer to SUNY's East Flatbush campus. She started looking for one-bedrooms in Park Slope for $1,500/month, but after realizing that "people just laugh in your face" with that kind of budget, she upped it to $2,000/month. She eventually found a large studio unit at 500 Sterling Place on the border of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, which The Times helpfully tells us is "sometimes called ProCro." The apartment is new and clean and has a washer-dryer, with a rent of $2,165/month. [The Hunt/"Convenient to Classes and Clean Socks"