Lucy Cohen Blatter

For New Yorkers missing the college dorm experience, your prayers have been answered. This week co-living startup Common has opened its first building in Crown Heights. TechCrunch caught up with founder and tech entrepreneur Brad Hargreaves to find out more about what's going on, but here's the gist:

We have a sneaking suspicion that the best thing about this $3,000 Boerum  Hill "junior one" is what's outside—both the pretty garden (with grass!) and the picture-perfect townhouse facade out front.

We're wondering, though, where exactly the bedroom is. And whether it's more of a one-bedroom or a studio, this place is pretty pricey for the neighborhood, well over the median for both.

Considering the near-constant barrage of headlines about apartment prices consistently breaking records in each borough, you could be forgiven for taking a sky's-the-limit approach to pricing your own apartment. But you really shouldn't.

It's almost that most wonderful time of the year for a subset of New Yorkers: bonus season. And while it may sound enviable, for city-dwellers with salaries that are largely bonus-based, renting or buying an apartment presents its own set of challenges.

For starters, many employers don't want to put bonuses in writing, and since they can fluctuate so much from year to year, "expected bonuses" often don't fly with landlords or co-op boards who like to rely on consistent income when evaluating future tenants and neighbors.