This week, readers checked out a popular post from our archives about a renter who won a studio apartment in the New York City housing lottery.

The apartment was her ticket out of her rough Bronx neighborhood where she was sleeping on her mother’s living room couch, but the reserved manner of her neighbors and the building’s quiet hours required some adjustment on her part.

Also of interest: A first-person account of a NYC newcomer who described how a co-living situation offered him a ready-made social life.

Here are this week’s top five posts:

1) I won a $908 studio in Long Island City in NYC's housing lottery, but I didn't count on the culture shock

2) Why I moved to NYC from Philadelphia: I wanted more excitement and to meet other young professionals

3) Housing lottery opens for 43 apartments at a new development in the Bronx

4) NYC real estate firm fined $260,000 for charging sky-high broker fees

5) Renters snapped up larger Manhattan apartments in January