Summer Internship Away: What to Do with Your NYC Apartment

The Math of an Empty Room

Rent is charged by the month, not the week, so count the rent payments that fall while you are gone. A 10-week internship from early June to mid-August covers about two and a half months. $1,850 times 2.5 is $4,625.

A 12-week stretch from late May to mid-August is closer to three full payments: $1,850 times 3 is $5,550. Add any bills in your name. Internet at $60 a month for three months is $180, for example.

On top of that you pay for housing in the other city. That second rent is the reason to look hard at your first one.

Option 1: Keep It and Leave It Empty

This is the simplest. Nothing to arrange, your things stay put, and you can come back for a weekend.

It is also the full $4,625 to $5,550. It can make sense if the gap is short, your rent is low, or your landlord says no to a sublet.

Option 2: Sublet for the Summer

A sublet keeps the lease in your name and puts someone in your room for the weeks you are away. New York is full of people who need exactly that in summer, including interns arriving from elsewhere.

Suppose you sublet at $1,700 for June and July and half of August. $1,700 times 2.5 is $4,250. Against $4,625 in rent, you are out $375 instead of the whole amount. Nobody can promise the room fills, so treat this as the best case and plan for a week or two empty at either end.

In buildings with four or more apartments, Real Property Law 226-b gives you the right to ask, and the landlord has 30 days to answer a written request sent by certified mail. Sublet Buddy lists stays of 30 days or longer, and the public listing shows your neighborhood, never your exact address.

Get your landlord’s written approval before anyone moves in. An email that says yes is good. A text or a verbal okay is hard to prove later.

• Sublet Your Apartment for the Summer
• Summer Sublets

Option 3: Leave the Lease

If your lease ends in the summer anyway, or you are not sure you want the place next year, ask about not renewing or about an assignment. An assignment hands the whole lease to a new tenant for good. Under New York law a landlord can refuse an assignment without a reason, though an unreasonable refusal lets you ask to be released on 30 days’ notice.

The cost is finding a new place in late summer, when StreetEasy’s asking rents are usually at their highest for the year.

• Leaving Before Your Lease Ends
• Sublet vs. Lease Takeover vs. Short-Term Rental

Match Your Dates to the People Looking

Your offer letter has a start and end date. Add travel days, then list those exact dates. Internships do not all run the same weeks, so say whether you can flex by a few days.

Check your school’s calendar too. If you leave right after finals in May, the gap is longer than the internship, and the math above grows by another half month.

1. March: read the lease, tell roommates, ask the landlord how they want the request.
2. March or April: list the room with dates and photos.
3. April: choose someone and send the formal request.
4. May: written answer, sublease signed, keys and house notes ready.

When you choose a subtenant, ask only about the stay: dates, ability to pay, references, pets, smoking and schedule. In New York City it is illegal to choose or refuse someone because of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship status, disability, family status, marital status, age, lawful source of income or another protected trait.

Things Interns Forget

• Your rent is still due to the landlord on the usual day. Set autopay and keep a cushion.
• Roommates need to know who is coming and for how long.
• Renters insurance: ask your insurer what changes during a sublet.
• A spare key with someone local, in case of a lockout while you are a flight away.
• Housing in the other city has its own rules. New York’s sublet law does not apply there.

• Sublet Checklist Before You Leave