IF you are looking for temporary housing in New York City, you can bet that the amount of work it takes to find a place for a month or two is inversely proportional to how much you can afford to pay.
At the upper end of the market, a few phone calls will land a fully furnished apartment designed for the Town Car set: executives on a short assignment, actors in town for a film, or a couple looking for accommodations while they renovate a Classic 6 on the Upper West Side. These apartments typically have full kitchens as well as amenities like housekeeping and fitness centers — and a price tag ranging from about $5,000 to $15,000 a month.
Hunters on a more limited budget can find a dizzying number of short-term sublets on Web sites like Airbnb and Craiglist. But it takes a lot of effort to weed through their listings, and may not lead to the type of bargain you were hoping for.
“The problem with short-term housing,” said Alison Rogers, a licensed saleswoman at DG Neary Realty in Chelsea, “is that people expect it to be cheaper than long-term housing, and it’s generally more expensive. So there’s a disconnect between expectations and the way the market prices those apartments.”
Although Ms. Rogers says it is generally not worth paying a broker fee for a short-term lease, real estate agents may know someone looking for a temporary tenant.
“I have clients who have a three-bedroom downtown in TriBeCa who go to the beach for a month,” Ms. Rogers said, “so I can put somebody in that apartment in August.”
If you have a local college or university connection, Ms. Rogers said, some offer access to off-campus housing listings to students, faculty members and alumni. She also suggested spreading the word through digital networks.
“Use your social network,” Ms. Rogers said. “If I were coming to town and I needed a $2,000 short-term rental, I would try Facebook.”
Craigslist has a “housing wanted” section where you can post a message about your plight, or search its “sublets temporary” listings for a suitable match.
A drawback of Craigslist is that you must filter out ads for apartments available for only a week or a few nights, skip over scams (anyone asking for payment via Western Union or wire transfer) and deal with decorating disappointments (where do people find these bedspreads?).
For a more curated selection of apartments for rent, sign up for the Listings Project, a free weekly e-mail compiled by Stephanie Diamond that lists artist studios and shares as well as apartments and sublets.
Ms. Diamond, an artist who lives in Brooklyn, started the list as a way to share housing and work-space announcements with her network of friends; now she has 25,000 subscribers and charges $20 a week to post a listing. There are no broker ads or broker fees.
“In the summer there’s a ton of housing available,” she said, “because a lot of artists travel then.”
A recent newsletter included a one-bedroom apartment for rent on the Upper East Side for $1,950 a month, a one-bedroom summer sublet in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for $1,800 a month and a one-bedroom sublet (until November) in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, for $1,500 a month.
Airbnb, a service that lists apartments and homes for rent, is geared toward travelers but has some longer-term options. A search for sublets available from June 1 to June 30 turned up more than 1,300 results, ranging from luxury apartments renting for more than $10,000 a month to a couch in a shared apartment for $25 a night.
You can sort the results to list only places whose owners will be away (as opposed to a private room — or couch — in shared accommodations), as well as narrow the field by neighborhood or price.
Although technically it is illegal to rent out an apartment in New York City for less than 30 days, a shorter-term sublet is allowed if the owner is present (for example, subletting a spare bedroom). And at a recent State Assembly hearing on illegal hotels, officials said the law had not been enforced against individuals who occasionally rent out their apartments while on vacation.
If you can afford to splurge on what used to be called “corporate housing,” you may be pleasantly surprised. The old generic business aesthetic has evolved into more stylish extended-stay hotels.
One company, AKA, has four properties in New York City — near Central Park, Sutton Place, Times Square and the United Nations — offering studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments with full kitchens and concierge services for around $10,000 per month.
Other extended-stay options in New York City are Churchill Corporate Housing, which also has apartments in New Jersey for less than $5,000 a month, and Sutton Court at 57th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, where monthly prices range from $5,800 to $6,500.
Some locations have a 30-day minimum stay requirement. Most include free Internet access and are flexible if your checkout date shifts — say, because a closing date changes or a renovation takes longer than expected.
“We never look to fill to 100 percent capacity because we always need room to be able to extend that time,” said Elana Friedman, AKA’s vice president for marketing.
While these corporate apartments tend to be cheaper than a hotel room booked for a few weeks, you may find a better deal at hotels in the outer boroughs. For instance, the new Hotel Vetiver in Long Island City, Queens, offers a special rate of $3,500 for 27 nights.
Rosalia Grippi, the hotel’s sales manager, says that rate is for a room with a kitchenette that has a mini-refrigerator, dishes, a coffee maker and a two-burner stovetop. If a room is available, it can be booked at the last minute — useful for another demographic that sometimes seeks short-term housing: the half of a couple ejected because of a breakup.
“You can call me today for tonight,” Ms. Grippi said.
