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At Home in theNorthwest 14 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement By KimVelsey The New York Times W hen Terese Lawry and Jacob Falkovich suddenly found out they had to move in August — a miscommunication between Lawry, a doctoral student in biology at Co- lumbia University, and the housing office resulted in their NewYork apartment being assigned to someone else — Falkovich suggested they turn to a time-hon- ored method for making hard choices: a decision matrix. “You start with, ‘What do I like about apartments — why do I even have one?’ Once you’ve written out some of those things, what else?” said Falkovich, 32, who works for a financial software company and described himself as a “gen- eralized math nerd.” “We have a lot of the scientific approach in our lives,” Lawry, 30, said. The couple identified 22 factors to consider in selecting an apartment and, after much discussion and a few compromises, as- signed each one a different weight. “Without weighting cri- teria, people just start being like, ‘I refuse to live without a dishwasher.’ How much is it worth for you— $100 a month, $200 a month?” Falkovich said. Their matrix featured basics, like cost — they considered only apart- ments available for $3,500 or less — as well as size and layout. It also included subletting and pet policies, lease duration and renewal terms, physical elements like windows, lighting, water pressure, outdoor space, air conditioning and whether the building had an elevator or amenities like a doorman or a gym. Sometimes they dis- agreed. Falkovich didn’t mind walking up three flights of stairs, but Lawry pressed him: What about when they had children? They agreed to assign an elevator a weight of 4; the size of the apartment, by comparison, was weighted as a 10, while laundry was given a 1. For location, they calcu- lated the score based on the mean duration of 10 weekly work commutes. They also included neigh- borhood features like prox- imity to grocery stores and parks, as well as aesthetics —what were the buildings and trees like? Was it pleas- ant to walk around? After they set their parameters, they created a spreadsheet and plugged in information from the on- line rental guide StreetEasy, updating it with additional details after they saw each apartment, to calculate an overall score. On the matrix, the 600-square-foot apartment they were leav- ing scored 209. Given their tight dead- line, they sometimes split up for showings so they could cover more ground, ultimately seeing more than 20 apartments. “With the matrix, we could trust each other more,” Falkov- ich said. “Rather than one of us seeing an apartment and saying, ‘It was pretty nice,’ we could see what the other person rated each of the factors.” It also helped themmove quickly and decisively. When an open house over- run with “hip yuppies” stirred their competitive spirit — if all those people wanted the place, shouldn’t they try to snag it? — they plugged the numbers into the matrix and felt confi- dent walking away. And when they toured their current apartment, a two-bedroom, two-bath- room duplex in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, that rents for $3,300 a month, it scored so high that they begged the broker to cancel the next showing she had scheduled while the landlord reviewed their application. “We knew we had to act fast. It scored a 238 — that’s two deviations up” from the other listings, which ranged from 180 to 215, Falkovich said. “If we took the math seriously, we knew we might not see another place like this.” The best way to pick an apartment? Start with what you love — and hate PHOTOS BY STEFANO UKMAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Terese Lawry and Jacob Falkovich identified 22 things to consider in selecting an apartment and, after much discussion and a few compromises, assigned each one a different weight. HOME SHOPPING