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decrees when they offer a new tenant a lease. These rules will also dictate what the rent increase will be at the renewal of the lease period (www.housingnyc.com). Armed with that knowledge, you're ready to begin the hunt.

Start looking

Like anywhere else, there are newspapers...but if that's going to be your strategy in NYC, you've got to get up in the dark, get the first copy of the New York Times fresh off the truck and immediately, despite the ungodly hour, call the contact number or go camp out in front of the building. Of course, the newspaper has a website (www.nytimes.com) but by the time you can access the ads there, the super deals are all long gone.

Set your internet browser to Craigslist (http://newyork.craigslist.org /aap/) and search several times a day to jump on new listings fast. Depending on your profession or your alma mater, there may be other avenues to try. Post your need for a pied a terre at the Harvard Club if your alumni status gains you entree. Don't overlook the bulletin board at the Fairway Market on the upper westside (2127 Broadway). The time-honored practice of checking the obituaries and going to the newly deceased's apartment building may still work, but not very likely. That practice was really a side effect of the old rent control law, which guaranteed an elderly dead person's apartment would be dirt cheap. Very few of those units still exist today and there are fewer all the time.

There are housing offices at most of the major universities in town, so if you or a family member has student or alumni privileges, pay them a visit. If you were educated elsewhere, call your old school. They may have guest privileges at a NYC institution. The same goes for large unions, trade and fraternal organizations and the like. In short, if you have any connection to an entity larger than yourself, use it. The last housing survey showed a vacancy rate of roughly three percent - meaning most apartments are occupied. The more places you can use to tap into those few vacancies, the more likely you'll end up with one to call your home.

Real life example

Melissa and Jesse graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana, where she accepted a job offer in Manhattan. A NYC cousin of hers saw an ad for an apartment on a bulletin board in a Chelsea bakery, called her and she jumped on it. Turned out to be a studio with a separate kitchen, but it was in their price range ($1200/month) and walking distance from her new position. They decided to lease

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