I live in Hawaii, as does KKBattousai. In a few months, we plan to move to Seattle, Washington.
In addition to the tons o’ fun we’re having getting together everything we want to take with us and figuring out how to get it there, we have the problem of how to get ourselves an apartment there when we’re all the way over here.
Has anyone tackled such a task before? I know we have quite a few Dopers who have made moves like this (abroad, even), so we hope to find some advice here. What’s the best way for us to do this? I have been searching for apartments online, and have the Seattle Times’ classifieds section on my lap as I type this. Is there another way I could be doing this? And finally, what, if anything, can we do to maximize our chances of getting a place?
I’m not working now, so should I need to contact anyone there by phone, I can play by their time zone.
I have considered flying out there for two or three weeks so as to be able to handle it in person, but I’m not sure it’d be necessary. It’s money I’d rather save for future rent, y’know?
If necessary, KKB has family in Seattle and I have relatives in Olympia that we could lean on if we had to. But I think I speak for both of us when I say we’d really rather not trouble them too much.
Tips? Recommendations? Resources? We’d appreciate any help you can give us.
I rented an apartment, sight unseen, in Salt Lake City when I was living in Rochester. Since I was going to the University there, I asked the Housing Office for a list of available apartments. It was out-of-date, so it was pretty useless for individual apartments, but many of the houses often had new apartments opening up. I started with the cheapest one on the list and started calling.
I figured that, even if the apartment was awful, it would give me a place to drop my stuff while I got settled. I lucked out. I ended up staying there for the four years I lived in SLC. I couldn’t find anything better at the price.
My suggestions;
1.) If either of you is associated with a University, use their Housing Services as I did. If you have a job at a company in town, check with their Human Resources. You might get the same deal.
2.) Go to the newsdealer in town that has Out Of Town papers, and look through the apartment listings for Seattle. Be prepared to do a lot of telephoning, or e-mailing.
3.) Check the on-line versions of the Seattle papers. They might have apartment listings on-line.
4.) Remember, it’s advantageous to have someplace to leave your stuff, even if it’s not your ideal. An apartment is way cheaper than a motel room.
5.) Find out about the undesirable parts of town that you might want to avoid. I’m not sure how to do this. A Seattle Doper might be able to help.
6.) The cheapest and easiest way for me to send books was Book Rate. I sent them to myself at General Delivery. That way, no one had to sign for thewm, and I got essentially free storage until I showed up. But 9/11 may have changed the rules on this.
Thanks, Cal. Regarding book rate as free storage, we have that covered.
You see, though I have no idea what they’re current policy is on storage storage, book rate from HI to CA takes 4-6 weeks (more like 2-3 in practice, but that’s still plenty of time), so that’ll do us fine.
With regards with your experience, was the place you moved into affiliated with the university? Or were they just really familiar with the idea of renting to students?
I’m curious since places like that are generally looser with the credit and income checks, since they know that, generally speaking, somebody is going to be paying the rent. We, OTOH, are nervous that the rental offices we talk to are going to be wary at our present/impending joblessness, though we each have a decent chunk of money saved away.
try this I’m using the internet to search for a nicer place locally.
If you can afford nice place, you’ll find a lot of them at sites like it (google for “rent apartment seattle”). Pictures, floor plans, etc.
If you have to look for a bargain, I don’t reccommend this route. There’s usually not enough info available on cheap places to tell if they’re bargains or not.
Thank you for the link, yojimboguy. I’ll be searching for a place some more tonight, and I’ll give that site a look.
I have been searching primarily using homestore.com (formerly rent.net). I’ve seen some places that I like, and they have rents we can afford, so I’m hoping that this process will be easier than I think.
Call the Chamber of Commmerce and ask for a relocation package. You’ll get maps, school listings, business cards from real estate agents and insurance guys. And all kinds of democraphics and statistics about who lives where. You can weed out bad neighborhoods, also, by just asking the people you talk to at the Chamber (and anyone else you wind up talking to): where’s the neighborhoods I want to avoid?
Go to the Seattle newspapers online. There will be real estate listings there and probably some links to other sites.
Enlist friends and relatives you said were in the area to also tip you off to areas you want to look in. And to go look at places, if it’s convenient and/or necessary.
Use that Chamber call to find a good real estate agent who handles apartments. Get them to do the looking and just fax you stuff. A good one could take digital pictures and e-mail them to you.
The approach I’ve been using thus far has been finding an apartment I like online (that homestore.com site has pictures, list of features, floor plans, etc.) and then e-mailing or telephoning the management company. While I’m still compiling a list of places to call this time around, I did this once last year. I explained that I was in a different state and planning to move there. The person I talked to seemed responsive and willing to work around the distance issue. Though I’m not going to call that place back (it was in Kirkland or Bellevue and we’re looking in Kent now), I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a place this same method.
I would like to be able to have someone check places out for me in person, but I’m sure my relatives can’t do it (they’re in Olympia). Maybe KKB’s relatives could do it, but I’m not sure how much of a hassle it would be for them. As I said, I would like to keep our help requests to a minimum.
Dogzilla, thank you for the Seattle CoC suggestion. I visited their website and saw that they have a relocation video, something I have been hoping to find. I’ll order stuff once I decide what I want. Again, thank you.
If I may ask-- when you all moved to your new apartments, were you employed? Did you have jobs waiting for you? If not, was the lack of employment an obstacle to getting a place? That’s been my biggest concern.
It’s really up to the ownership. There are apartments here that specify “income requirements” to lease. The place I’m in now (a little mom&pop privately owned building) never ever asked for a reference.
The large, corporately managed complexes have stiffer rules and enforcement. Are you going to be a student? They do understand that students are frequently unemployed. But if you are moving to find job or “new life”, you might have some trouble. This is the kind of thing where personal contact with the manager/owner can help a lot, even if it’s over the phone.
PS. I moved from Illinois to Washington DC without even looking for a place – I stayed at a total stranger(coworker)'s spare room for about 6 weeks. When I moved to Madison, unemployed, I stayed at my sister’s for 6 months before I found a place.
Don’t hesitate to lean on your WA contacts early on. Especially for advice about affordable/safe areas of the city to live in. If they’re willing and you trust their judgement, once you pick a place have one of them take a gander at it.
Thanks, yojimboguy. With luck, we’ll find a place we like, and be able to get in.
I’m not a student anymore, although for the past 2 years I was teaching a class at the university and essentially living like a student. And I was thinking about working for a year to establish residency before continuing with graduate school. Would that work, do you think?
I’ll try to get rid of my “Don’t ask for help!” mentality. I realize if there ever was a time I needed to ask for help with something, it’s now. But still, it’s hard habit to break, y’know?
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