Apartment Hunting 101

Amanda and I went apartment hunting last Friday and Saturday OMG A LONG TIME AGO. I wanted to try and share some of the knowledge that we gained through the whole experience.

If you’re planning on looking for an apartment, hopefully some things I say here will aid you in your search.

Also, you could probably just call me and we could chat. You know, whatever works best.

Relationship stress. If you are doing your searching with anyone else, no matter how many people it is, be prepared for your relationship to be put through some stress. You know the old saying, “Don’t ever live with your best friend?” When you spend a lot of time with someone and talk about life changing decisions, people’s feelings get hurt, you get stressed out, and you argue.
Food. Bring some small snacks with you. Maybe a Power bar, an apple, some crackers, whatever. Looking at apartments is time consuming and energy consuming. Obviously you can eat a meal at some point, but you will most likely be doing a lot of walking (stairs, rooms, parking lots, etc.) so you want to make sure that you have some snacks when you feel like you need a pick-me-up. As an added bonus, energetic and happy people tend to argue less, so this point may help you with #1 as well.

Do your homework. Before you go ANYWHERE, you need to do your research. Now this is a BIG step. There are LOTS of things to consider when you’re starting your research. I would suggest you start by physically writing down and making a list of things that are important to you when searching for an apartment. Some things that were important to us were (in no particular order): location, price, complex privacy/security, amenities, washer/dryer connections, and what type of apartment (layout and level). Many of these sites will offer online referral bonuses for using them to get the apartment. Take advantage of the offers if you end up getting one that you found on their site. Once you have a list of things that are important to you, start searching for some apartment complexes. Some good resources to use are: apartmentguide.com, rent.com, forrent.com, and the specific complex website. Find apartment complexes that offer the things you want for the price you want and make a list. I would suggest finding 10-15 that you think satisfy all your wants/needs. Finding a good apartment is hard, so the more you look at, the options you will have. Plus, even if you find one that looks great online, seeing it in person is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

Plan your route. This may seem trivial, but you don’t want to drive 100 miles when you could have driven less than 50. Don’t leap frog around town. Take 5 minutes to plan what order you’re going to visit them in. Also, while you’re driving between places, don’t be afraid to stop at one you see on the way and didn’t find while you did your research earlier. (We found our #1 choice that way.)

Pack a travel kit. This may seem like a waste of a <li>, but it’s still important. You want to make sure that you have everything you need before you head out on the road.

1. Paper + Pen to take notes with
2. CAMERA (a little more on this later)
3. Snacks from #2
4. List of locations
5. Map of locations (if you have a GPS, you probably don’t need this)
6. LIST OF THINGS YOU WILL NOT LIVE WITHOUT (more on this in a minute)

Going inside. So you made a list, checked it twice, and arrived at a location. Don’t be scared. They are selling you something. They need to be the ones that are scared. You have to walk in with the attitude that you will immediately leave if you don’t get what you want or you see something that you don’t like. DO NOT GET ATTACHED. That sounds easy, but it’s not. Sometimes you’ll walk in and feel like “OMGGGG! THIS IS THE ONE!” So stay calm, stay focused, and remember that you haven’t bought anything yet.Tell them what you want. When you first walk in, they’ll probably ask you some basic questions about what you’re looking for. You should have already looked at the price range, room layouts, amenities, etc. So you’ll have information already about what you like about the particular place you’re currently at. Tell them EXACTLY what you are looking for. This is pretty much what we said when we walked in. And now the reason that you want to lay it on the line FROM THE BEGINNING and not be afraid to walk away: They WILL show you apartments that do not have everything you want. If they know you’re looking and not finding what you want, they’ll show you something that’s almost what you want in hopes that you will settle. An example opening sentence is:

I’m looking for a top floor 2B/2B under $800 and it MUST HAVE washer/dryer connections.

While inside the rooms. Lots of stuff for this section. Starting a sub list for this one.

1. Look around at the space. Make sure it’s as big as you need it to be. If you look at a staged room, it may be a bit easier to see how furniture fits in the space. If the rooms are blank, they’re going to look and feel a bit bigger. There’s a give and take between seeing rooms with and without furniture, so make sure you see some of both. That way, you can see how furniture looks in it and then visualize how you would do it if it were yours.
2. Make notes. Write down what you liked and what you didn’t. “Small closets, old kitchen cabinets, no pool, etc…” Review your notes when you get back to the car. Especially if you’re going with other people. Talk about what you found so you can either add them to your “go back” list or scratch them off completely.
3. TAKE PICTURES. Do you honestly expect to remember everything about 10-15 apartments? You have to do something to visually remind yourself later about what you saw. Personally, no one ever had a problem with us taking pictures. Interesting side note: Amanda and I used the camera as a sign that she didn’t like it. She was in charge of the camera. If she didn’t take it out of her purse, we weren’t staying very long.
4. Look at the appliances. You don’t want an apartment that has appliances and fixtures from the 1980s. Find out what they offer and what it would take to get what you want. The complex we ended up going with offered new appliances and updated fixtures for an extra $100 per month. We got them to do a half upgrade for $50 that only covered the kitchen appliances (refrigerator, dish washer, stove).

Ask questions. This part is pretty important. There’s a lot of extra information that you’ll want to know when you’re looking at a place. You’ll also feel more comfortable talking instead of walking around in silence.

1. “How old is the property? When was it built?” A complex that was built in the 1970s probably has thinner walls and centralized utilities because of what the regulations were way back when. Unless it’s been recently bought and renovated, this information is helpful for knowing if you’ll be able to hear your neighbors and share their costs.
2. “How long has the current management company owned the property?” If there have been 3-4 owners in the last 10 years, something is wrong. You don’t want to really live in a place that no one wants to own.
3. “How are the basic utilities handled?” This might seem like a silly question, but we went to a complex that took the total consumption of water, divided it by the number of units being used, and weighted it by how many people were in your unit. Basically, for a month, if you used 1 gallon of water and your neighbor used 100, you would be paying more and they would be paying less. Not a good deal IMHO.
4. “Who are your direct competitors?” It may be a good idea to check out who is directly competing for your business. Two complexes that are less than a mile away might offer you some kind of deal for choosing them over the other one. (We swung free rent for the first month and $600 off the next 2 months for name dropping their competitor, telling them they were our #2 choice, and that we were making a decision in the next hour.)
5. “How much for <insert the next step up from what you want>?” If the most you’re willing to spend is $800 for a 2B/2B and you find a place that has a 3B/3B loft with garage for $900, you probably want to leave. You don’t want to be on the high end of the price spectrum because chances are good that the other tenants will be low-income.
6. “What kind of activities do you plan for your residents?” Even if you don’t plan on going to any of them, you want to live in a place that cares enough to plan things for their tenants. A company that tries to do fun things for their residents are going to care more then one that doesn’t plan anything. While we were looking, we found a complex that would plan at least one event per week and actually give money back to you from the price of the ticket for doing certain predetermined things around Atlanta (like going to the zoo, the aquarium, or the Fox theater).

Extra tips. Here’s a list of extra things that I either forgot about while writing this or I couldn’t find a good place to stick it in. (Twizzler.)

1. BEWARE OF THE BOTTOM LEVEL. THE PEOPLE ABOVE US ARE LOUD AS CRAP. I guess it’s because the floor is kind of thin, but we can hear everything they say and everywhere they walk. They vacuum their living room after midnight sometimes. Live as far up the floors as you can.
2. DOES YOUR CELL PHONE WORK INSIDE THE APARTMENT. We totally forgot about this while we were searching. We get 0-1 bars of service inside the apartment. We ended up paying to get some cheap, Internet-based, home phone service that we could forward our cell phones to before coming in. I mean, if your complex is in a valley next to some power lines, there may not be much you can do, but if you’re trying to decide between two places that are seemingly tied, take this into account. It’s a big hassle sometimes.
3. Make a weekend of your searching. Don’t try to cram looking at 10-15 into one day. Amanda and I did that and we were EXHAUSTED. Even after taking pictures and making notes, it was still really hard to keep everything straight. Spread out looking over a Saturday day and Sunday afternoon. Make sure you check the times for when they are open though. We got to a couple of places early and just left because we didn’t want to wait.
4. Pets. Amanda and I don’t have any pets, but each complex will invitably ask you if you are planning on bringing an animal with you. Though I don’t have a lot of expert things to say on this subject, I can drop a few key words on you so you can ask questions and figure out your own plan.
   1. Pet Fee. A one-time fee just for having the animal. It’s kind of like a security deposit, except 50% of the time it’s non-refundable. Some places charge HUGE amounts for this.
   2. Pet rent. A per month fee for having your animal. This “rent” is non-refundable.
   3. Animal size. Depending on how big your animal is, there are a variety of things that could happen. The pet fees and rents may change if it’s super small/big or you may not be able to bring it in at all if it weighs too much.

Going back. After you’ve looked at a bunch of places, rank the places that you you liked and plan to go back to them. Tell them you liked what they had the first time and that you are going back to all the places that you liked to check out everything again. This will do a number things for you:

1. Tell the complex that you’re interested, but that you have other options. They might be willing to offer you a deal to push themselves over the top.
2. Refresh your own memory without having a bunch of other rooms mixing it up. It’s much easier to keep stuff straight the second time around. The first pass is just to weed out the places that aren’t up to par. The second pass is all about really picking the one you like the most.

Ok well, that about does it for all of my current knowledge about hunting for an apartment. Feel free to contact me, if you know how, or post some questions in the comments. I hope you found at least some of this information useful because IT TOOK ME A REALLY LONG TIME TO TYPE ALL OF THIS OUT.

Happy hunting.