Furnished short-stay · Upper West Side
Furnished Short-Stay NYC — No Broker Fee, No US Guarantor Required
Furnished short-stay coliving on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, on West 85th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Rooms from $420 a week, billed every four weeks, all-inclusive. No broker fee. No US credit history required. No US guarantor. Two blocks from Central Park, three minutes’ walk to the 1 train.
Who this page serves
Built for arrivals where the standard rental shape is wrong.
Upper West Side furnished short-stay coliving exists for a particular kind of arrival in NYC: a stay between four weeks and a year, where the standard rental process — broker fee, guarantor letter, credit check, security deposit, furniture run, utility setup — is the wrong shape for the move.
The four people who land on this page most often:
- Relocating professionals moving from another US city or another country for a new role, typically four to twelve months.
- International graduate students and post-docs without US credit history or a US guarantor, often arriving on a J-1, F-1, or H-1B visa.
- Summer interns whose program runs ten to twelve weeks, needing a friction-free move-in between final exams and Day 1 at the firm.
- Anyone moving to NYC who wants a transparent monthly outlay — one number per week, all-inclusive, no surprise utility bills.
Furnished coliving without the standard NYC rental friction.
Why Amsterdam Place — Upper West Side
Manhattan’s residential anchor, ten minutes from anything.
The Upper West Side is the part of Manhattan that has stayed residential. Limestone and brownstone fronts, low-traffic side streets, canopies of old trees on the avenues. It is leafy, walkable, and quieter than Midtown — but the 1, 2, and 3 trains will put you in Times Square in under fifteen minutes and the Financial District in well under an hour.
The neighborhood is built around the institutions short-stay residents tend to need. Lincoln Center and Juilliard are eight minutes south. Columbia is fifteen minutes north on the 1 train. The hospital corridor — Mount Sinai, Cornell-Weill — is a twelve-to-twenty-minute crosstown ride. Riverside Park along the Hudson is three blocks west.
Furnished short-stay coliving sits in a specific gap. It is not a sublet, which usually means a twelve-to-fifteen-percent broker fee, a US guarantor letter, a security deposit, and a furniture run before the first work week. It is not corporate housing, which is typically priced for an expense account. It is not an Airbnb — sub-thirty-day stays are constrained by NYC LL18, and the model is not designed for someone who wants a community across a four-month relocation.
We borrow from hotels more than from landlords. The buildings are managed end to end by a single hospitality team. The rooms are furnished. The WiFi is on when you arrive. The cleaning happens on schedule. You can read the broader Upper West Side coliving page for the wider pillar.
Why no broker fee matters
The math, end to end.
The standard New York City apartment broker fee is twelve to fifteen percent of the annual rent, paid up front, on top of the move-in costs. Most renters discover this only after they have signed an offer.
Worked through the math:
- A typical unfurnished Upper West Side studio rents at roughly $3,200 to $3,500 a month.
- Annualized at $3,500, that is $42,000 a year.
- A twelve-percent broker fee on $42,000 is $5,040. A fifteen-percent fee is $6,300.
- That fee is paid before move-in, on top of the first month’s rent, often a last month’s rent, and a security deposit equal to a month’s rent.
- Total cash out of pocket before the keys: typically $15,000 to $20,000 for an unfurnished unit, in line with NYC norms.
At Amsterdam Place there is no broker fee, because there is no broker. The buildings are leased and operated directly by the same hospitality team that runs the front desk and the cleaning schedule. The first-month outlay for a private room is the four-week prepaid figure — $1,680 — plus a small refundable hold. There is no fee paid to a third party who hands you keys and disappears.
This is not framed as a saving. It is the absence of a charge that does not need to exist when the building is run as a managed property rather than a brokered listing. For a four-month relocation, a $5,040 broker fee avoided is the difference between a comfortable arrival budget and a stressful one — roughly the equivalent of a month and a half of stay.
No US credit, no guarantor
Verifying the move, not the credit file.
The standard New York City rental application asks for a US credit score, typically 650 or higher, and a US-based guarantor with verified income at eighty times the monthly rent. For long-time New York residents these are checkboxes. For everyone else, they are real barriers.
The people most affected:
- International arrivals — newly landed grad students, visiting scholars on J-1 visas, professionals on H-1B who have not yet built US credit history.
- Recent graduates with thin or no credit file.
- Career-switchers between roles, where current pay stubs are not yet representative.
- Self-employed and freelance applicants whose income does not fit a W-2 form.
The Amsterdam Place approach is to verify the move, not the credit file. What we ask for instead:
- A government-issued ID — passport or driver’s license.
- Documentation of the move itself — an offer letter, an internship offer, an academic admissions letter, an I-20 or DS-2019 for international students and researchers, or an employer letter for a relocation.
- Standard contact and emergency information.
There is no US credit check. There is no US guarantor requirement. The application is read by the team — not by an automated screen — and a response usually comes within one business day.
This is friction-removal, not a different rental category. The building is a furnished managed property; the qualification model fits the residents the building is built for. International researchers, recent grads, and career-switchers all rent the same room types at the same prices.
The building & pricing
From $420 a week, all-inclusive.
Amsterdam Place is two adjacent prewar buildings on West 85th Street, half a block in from Amsterdam Avenue: 205 and 207. Both date to 1910. Together they hold roughly twenty-four rooms, run as one small coliving operation rather than a chain. You can read the buildings in detail on the residences page.
Three room types, three weekly rates:
- Private room, shared bath: $420 a week.
- Deluxe room, shared bath: $470 a week.
- Studio with ensuite bathroom: $620 a week.
Stays are billed every four weeks. The weekly figure is the figure: no separate utility bill, no WiFi surcharge, no cleaning fee, no amenity fee, no late move-in fee. Heat, hot water, electricity, gigabit WiFi, weekly common-space cleaning, the roof deck, the coworking lounge, on-site laundry access, bike storage, and community events are all part of it. You can see the three room types for floor plans and current availability.
For the comparisons most short-stay renters will be running:
- Versus an unfurnished UWS studio: roughly $3,200 to $3,500 a month, plus utilities, broker fee, security deposit, and furnishing.
- Versus corporate housing: typically $6,000 to $10,000 a month, designed for expense-account use.
- Amsterdam Place: $1,680 for four weeks at the private-room tier, all-inclusive, furnished, no broker fee — comparable monthly outlay for the same address, with much lower upfront friction.
The minimum stay is four weeks, in line with the New York City law prohibiting rentals under thirty days — the legally compliant short-stay model in the city.
How coliving works for short-stay
Managed end to end. Programming optional.
The hospitality model is the practical difference. The buildings are managed end to end by the same team — front desk, cleaning, on-call, move-in. When something needs fixing, the team that handles the front desk sends someone to fix it.
Coliving here is also not a forced community. Programming you can join, never programming you have to. There is a residents’ Slack, a recurring weekly dinner, occasional rooftop nights through the summer, and a calendar of small things — a museum walk, a film evening — for residents who want them. People who would rather close the door, work late, and come back to a clean room are doing exactly the right thing. A typical floor on a short-stay week looks like a relocating consultant from London, a Columbia post-doc on a J-1, a summer intern from a Midwestern university, and a designer between contracts.
The common spaces are designed for both modes — the roof deck looks east toward Central Park; the coworking lounge has bookable focus seats for days when the room becomes confining (see the amenities and common spaces for the full list). Move-in is built around a suitcase: the rooms are furnished including linens, towels, and basic kitchenware; WiFi is on day one; there is no utility setup and no furniture-assembly weekend.
How to book
Four ways to start.
Four ways to start, depending on how committed you are. All four respect the same guarantees: no broker fee, no US guarantor, no US credit history check.
- Reserve a room with no payment up front — the lightest option. Name dates and room tier; we hold it while you confirm relocation, visa, or program details.
- Book a tour, in-person or virtual — we respond within one business day. International applicants commonly start with a virtual walkthrough.
- Book your stay — the direct route. Pay the service fee, secure the room, receive arrival instructions.
- Apply for a longer stay — for stays of six months or more. No US guarantor required; the application is read by the team, not by an automated screen.
For wider context, the NYC summer intern housing page covers the summer cohort, the Manhattan grad student housing near Columbia and Juilliard page covers the academic year, and the more on the Upper West Side neighborhood page is the longer answer on the address. For the journal, see furnished vs unfurnished intern housing and budgeting for a NYC summer internship.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
The standard New York City apartment broker fee is twelve to fifteen percent of annual rent, paid up front. On a $3,500-a-month unfurnished apartment that is $5,040 to $6,300 before move-in, on top of the first month's rent and the security deposit. Amsterdam Place has no broker because the buildings are managed in-house. The practical saving is roughly $4,000 to $6,000 before you have slept in the apartment.
Find your place on the Upper West Side.
Reserve a room without payment, apply for your dates, or schedule a tour — we reply within one business day.