Time has come, Manhattan here I come

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

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I'd wish you luck but you need a miracle for your plan.

Five stars.

1-2 months in this market for an entry level job is a longshot. In 2 months you'll be moving back to Fla or working retail.

Originally Posted by svd

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1-2 months in this market for an entry level job is a longshot. In 2 months you'll be moving back to Fla or working retail.

This. The only friend I know who made this plan work had a few things in her favor:
A) she was a cute girl
B) she knew lots of people in the city so she was able to sleep on couches while she looked for a job
C) moved to the city in 05 when economy was still cruising
D) did I mention cute girl?

She got a decent, but low salary job with her "local" mailing address and eventually made it out of NYC unscarred.

G'luck OP, stay in Florida where we don't have state income taxes.

Eh, don't let the haters get you down. Get your hustle on and move here!

You can find a decent room around Columbia U. on the Upper West Side for $6-800 a month, esp. around end of semesters. If I were you I'd target early summer for arrival...lots of summer spaces open up on short notice, plus summer jobs/temp work picks up. Cost of living is whatever you want it to be, esp. if you know how to cook. There's a ton of free fun stuff all summer long -- concerts, film, plays -- just riding the ferry to Governor's Island or biking around town is a blast.

I absolutely agree that it's much easier (if anything can be said to be "easy" in this economy!) to be where you want to be to find a job. Long distance job hunting is a drag.

My son, a struggling actor, flew to NYC for auditions, found a cheap shared space and stayed for a while. He found a ****** night job in a bar and auditioned during the day. It was his dream to try every audition possible on Broadway and he did it. He never got a big break but he tried it and he later went on to LA were other opportunities made themselves available. He did this with a plane ticket, a duffle bag, laptop and $800. I was very proud of him for living his dream.

The one thing he did say about where to live is that his idea of what was best changed while he was there. He found it a benefit to find shared, short term rentals. As a result he lived on the Upper West Side, Brooklyn and the LES. He thought the closer-in subway stops in Brooklyn were the best locations and value.

Go to NYC, make it an adventure. It may work or it may not. But you won't know until you go. So, good luck to you.

I moved to New York during a recession and landed a job with a firm that was -- at that time -- the tops in my field. Had I not been in New York to jump at the opportunity, I'd never have been considered.

If your good at what you do and you know it ... go for it.

I would definitely move to nyc and start working at a retail job, or as a bartender, or something and apply for jobs. I would try to get a roommate as well. People saying that you can live on the upper west side for $600-$800 are overly optimistic. For that amount you need 2 roommates, or actually live in Harlem.

I don't get the whole "only Manhattan is NYC" thing...and I grew up there. That may have been true in the 80's, but not anymore. I have a friend who prides himself on never living in an outer boro, but he lives on 155th street and is further away from anything worth doing or seeing in NYC than most people I know in Brooklyn and Queens.

Originally Posted by gladhands

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I don't get the whole "only Manhattan is NYC" thing...and I grew up there. That may have been true in the 80's, but not anymore. I have a friend who prides himself on never living in an outer boro, but he lives on 155th street and is further away from anything worth doing or seeing in NYC than most people I know in Brooklyn and Queens.
Well, there is a limit to how far north I'd go. You are right ... if you're gonna live on 155th street ... might as well be Queens or Brooklyn. Lets face it ... Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Midtown, Chelsea, The Village, Soho, Tribeca, etc ... that's "New York".

You could easily find a place in Chelsea; you wouldn't have to pay any money but it would take a physical toll very quickly.

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

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I imagined the West Village was more expensive now. When I lived there in 89-91, my rent was $800 and I had two roommates paying the same for $2,400 basement apartment. Rooms were tiny, almost closets. But we had a courtyard and threw lots of good parties. We considered ourselves lucky. Later Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke moved in nearby and they converted a lot of the apartment buildings back into the original townhomes and sold them for millions.

3K gets you a ****** 1 bedroom in the West Village. Seriously ******. But it's enough for a nice studio there. Cross the 7th ave line, and rent drops quite a bit. It's funny.

Originally Posted by RSS

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For Americans, success requires "doing time" in New York.

BTW, New York does not mean Brooklyn.

For some reason, I would have thought you'd prefer NY's rive gauche. Guess I was wrong.

Wow, thanks for all the responses so far guys; keep them coming! I'll try to address some of the posts:

Originally Posted by Dashaansafin

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And dont count on your finance degree unless its from a top 20 to absolutely secure a job. Why didnt you go through OCR at school?
No companies had immediate NYC opportunities that interviewed at my school. I got offered a position at Deutche Bank out of school and turned it down for a couple reasons, one being that it was in Jacksonville. I could easily be making $60k/yr right now if I chose to work in my college town. I care more about living where I want to live more than the money.

Originally Posted by imageWIS

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You have a finance degree, but haven't done the cost of living analysis regarding how much it will cost you to live here?

Call me crazy

Originally Posted by Artisan Fan

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I think this is only true in some worlds like banking, fashion, journalism, etc. It's not true in consulting and probably opposite in technology.
Consulting has always been my first choice, but it's hard to get your foot in the door without knowing people, and it's hard to network from the other side of the country. This is what I want to persue the most when I arrive there. Although, what's the point of living in NYC and paying the high rents if I'm traveling 5 days a week?

Originally Posted by mintyfresh

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What type of finance experience do you have? Internships? previous jobs?
I have a degree in Finance, a degree in Real Estate, and I Minored in Entrepreneurship. I have good experience working on financial proformas, and crunching numbers for commercial real estate deals. I'm great at research, negotiation, managing, client retention, etc... I missed the boat on the internships, but I've started 2 companies in the past which I've grown and sold, and I'm currently working on my 3rd.

Originally Posted by mack11211

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Times have changed. "The City" still means Manhattan exclusively, but living and/or working in any of the boros can have equivalent prestige.
I'm not looking for "prestige"; I like the idea of NY as a place to live while I'm in my 20's. Later I plan on moving to SoCal.

Originally Posted by Connemara

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$40-$60K? Those are peon dollars.
I agree. Making that out of college is pretty common, and I would imagine the jobs pay more in NY because the cost of living is higher... there's just more competition.

Originally Posted by patrickBOOTH

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I would definitely move to nyc and start working at a retail job, or as a bartender, or something and apply for jobs. I would try to get a roommate as well. People saying that you can live on the upper west side for $600-$800 are overly optimistic. For that amount you need 2 roommates, or actually live in Harlem.
This would be perfect. A little gig managing a bar or something would be great to start out, and it would give me time to focus on what I really want to be doing(entrepreneurship), rather than working 80-90hr weeks as a slave at a financial institution. I'm not a "start at the bottom, work your way up over 30yrs" kind of guy. Hard work is necessary, but if it's not what I absolutely love, it's not going to last, regardless of the pay.

Originally Posted by haganah

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3K gets you a ****** 1 bedroom in the West Village. Seriously ******. But it's enough for a nice studio there. Cross the 7th ave line, and rent drops quite a bit. It's funny.
Why does it drop after 7th ave?

Originally Posted by haganah

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For some reason, I would have thought you'd prefer NY's rive gauche. Guess I was wrong.
I'm curious as to why? Perhaps your answer will help our OP.

Don't get me wrong ... Brooklyn has some great neighborhoods ... and its offerings in the arts and other amenities have come a long way in the last several decades. Of course, it always had a few choice plums. Still, The City is a world class destination ... the other four boroughs are not. They can be okay ... even good ... and occasionally great ... but they are not The City. If it's to be experienced or had, New York offers everything but country living.

And from my point of view, Brooklyn isn't the Rive Gauche ... that's the Upper West Side or maybe Downtown.

Originally Posted by RSS

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For Americans, success requires "doing time" in New York.

BTW, New York does not mean Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Park Slope, and Carroll Gardens have appreciated to prices equivalent to Manhattan. Square footage in the North and Central Slope is about as pricey as the East Village. I used to live on the Upper West Side off CPW, and now live in Park Slope near Prospect Park. Central Park is nicer than Prospect Park, though I prefer 5th and 7th Avenues to Amsterdam, Columbus, and Broadway. Commute time to downtown is comparable.

Originally Posted by gomestar

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The average salary for recent college grads who moved to NYC is like $35K. $60K is a very aggressive number.


You will need to sublet then, nobody will rent you a place for 1-2 but maybe up to 4 months. And then when you do rent, you'll likely need first/last/deposit for a new place. So at $1500/mo that's $4,500 down for the lease. And they'll want you to earn 40x's of income over the monthly rent. So $1500 x 40 is at $60K a year in salary, else you'll need your parents to sign on as guarantors.

Make a mental note that I ran into this and there was a major problem. I have a base of $35000 with a commission structure on top. I needed guarantors for my apartment in QUEENS. NY state law requires the guarantors to be located in the state of NY. If you don't have any family from here then you are kinda screwed on this one.

I got a job here before I moved here. Can't imagine going about it the way you are.

May I suggest looking into Sunnyside, Queens. I have been living here 3 months and it is wonderful. I am one block from the 7 train which gets me to grand central in 15 min. Rent is in the $1000-1500 for a 1 bedroom. From someone who hasn't lived here long this isn't worth much but I feel as if Sunnyside has retained the classic melting pot feel that is now commercialized within Manhattan.

Don't let others try to discourage you.

Just two anecdotes (both guys from state schools in AZ both within past year)...

A buddy of mine graduated without a job. He went and travelled Europe for about a month or two before moving to New York with no job. He busted his ass off, took an unpaid internship and was able to land an analyst position at Barclays within 3 months.

Another friend graduated a semester early, interned for free at a local bank. He made a trip to NYC after calling several MD's and he used his foreign background and soccer passion to connect with MD's at a Latin America Emerging Markets group at a top bank.

There are so many people landing spots at big banks, just make sure you know your stuff when it comes to interviews because one little **** up will throw you out of the candidacy pool. Have a good story and enjoy your time there because you will want to kill yourself after you start working (assuming you get one of the 65+ hour jobs).