Going to start apt shopping in a few mths and would like to know what you guys look for. Obviously no bed bugs, nice neighbors, price, location, crime rates, etc but what about:
new apt must have good cell phone reception INSIDE. My current apt is like a black hole for signals. I’ve had to take important calls while standing across the street from my apt in the rain with the sounds of big Harley’s and semi’s driving by. I’ve actually missed calls and texts b/c they weren’t received by my phone until I drove away from the building. Going out into the parking lot doesn’t help either. It’s weird.
I’m tired of dealing with “boiler system” heating and cooling. Every other apt I’ve lived in in this city has this and it sucks. Basically, the heating and AC is controlled by the complex. During the summer the thermostat in your house will only put out cold air no matter how high you set the dial until the complex deems it officially winter and they flip some switch somewhere and you get only heat. The problem comes in that weird seasonal overlap when you have freezing cold nights with nice days or a run of scorchers then a return to winter.
My bathtub does not drain well AT ALL. Takes forever to clean and rinse it, and feels gross to shower while standing in a pool of water that is calf-high. Yuk.
Who does the maintenance? How fast do things get fixed? I’ve lived in a number of apartments owned by small-time landlords. The maintenance situation has been one of the biggest factors in my happiness. At the worst, the landlord gets “a guy on craigslist” or the idiot brother-in-law to show up a week after something critical has broken, jury rig a barely acceptable fix, and leave a mess in the process. At best, there’s a professional property manager that can show up in a few hours for real emergencies, and either handle the minor repairs or get someone else to do major repairs in short order. In between those two extremes, the landlord should have a good relationship with a handful of handymen/plumbers/carpenters.
Also, most cases of non-draining bath tubs aren’t hard to fix. Most likely there is a hair clog in the drain trap. You can probably fix it yourself with a wire hanger bent straight with a small hook in the end. Just shove it in and fish out the hair clog. Alternatively, you can achieve the same thing with various as-seen-on-TV gizmos or a cheap drain auger. There’s always chemical drain cleaners too, but you should be careful with these since they can damage pipes and septic systems.
One that I never even thought about until I got into an apartment where it was a problem: Adequate and well-placed electrical outlets.
I rented a 600 sq ft apartment in a cool 100-year-old building that had a small bedroom and then one big, long 300 sq ft room for living/dining/etc. I didn’t notice until I moved in that the living room only had *one *electrical outline, and it was on one of the short walls *between *the exterior door and the opening to the kitchen. So anything I wanted to plug in had to be run off extension cords that I had to snake past doorways. Very inconvenient, but probably not much of an issue in newer buildings.
Enough units to be profitable while still not needing “on-site, 24hr management”, good location, construction (brick structures are fan-fuckin’-tastick!), good roof, long-term tenants. NO POOL! NO LAWN!
Take a good look at how your furniture will fit in the place: my current apt has lots of room, but a weird layout with no long windowless walls. Trying to figure out where to put my TV was a pain. Finally put it on a short wall near the cable outlet, but then I get to sit on my couch and look into my bathroom. It also has a nice open look with the kitchen overlooking the dining and living areas. Because of that, there is almost no cabinet space in the kitchen. I will also echo looking for electrical sockets. My place only has a few and in odd places.
Maintenance: It is hard to figure out who will have good maintenance. I lived in a very large complex with crappy maintenance, and I lived in an apt with an offsite landlord. I had the same simple toilet problem at both places: the shutoff valve failed. The large complex wiggled it around and claimed it fixed. When told it wasn’t fixed, they wiggled it again, and claimed it fixed. When told that I would rip the valve out and fucking beat it into pieces if they didn’t replace it*, they replaced it. The offsite landlord replaced it without question, noting that if it occasionally won’t shut off, it is dead.
*After two half ass non-attempts at fixing something that took me two minutes to diagnose, I was pretty pissed. The place had an office to discuss these things, and I very firmly told the young lady working there that I wanted the toilet fixed properly. I was very careful to not get mad at her, or make her feel like it was her fault. The maintenance request that she wrote had something like “he seems very angry.” I chuckled.
Another vote for making sure the maintenance is good. And I’m with you on the cell phone reception. I do a lot of work from home, and not having cell coverage in my apartment would be a deal-breaker.
I also check for:
Noise. If at all possible, I try to figure out whether I’ll be able to hear everything my neighbors do (and whether they’ll be able to hear everything I do.) I also want to know whether there’s lots of street or hallway noise.
Views. My apartment looks directly onto a park, so I get to see trees when I look out my windows. For whatever reason, that’s important to me. Having to stare at, say, dingy concrete walls has a real effect on my quality of life.
Distance from mass transit, especially the subway. In good weather, it doesn’t matter so much if I have to walk an extra block to the train. In November drizzle or February sleet, it does.
Depending on where you live, snow removal can be an issue. If it is in your area, find out who’s responsible for plowing the parking areas and shoveling the sidewalks.
I don’t drive, so it has to be a location within walking distance of everything I will ever need, which is basically a supermarket, a bank, a lending library, a drug store. Where I am now is also within walking distance of a hospital, and all the places I can walk to are on trafficless residential streets, with no walking required along busy thoroughfares. There is also a bus stop about a block away. Maximum distance to any of the above is about 0.6 miles.
My apartment management office has a coffee room, and they bake a cake every week. There is a pool and an exercise room. I pay $499 a month for a 1-BR, and it is quiet and well maintained.
You might look at terms of your lease. How quickly can they raise your rent and what additional things can they throw in. Also how easy is it for you to break your lease if you suddenly have to move.
I agree about the parking, especially guest parking. Most places will give you, the resident, an assigned parking space, but it’s really a pain when your guests have to park up the street because there’s no guest parking on the property (I know whereof I speak).
I also think that exterior maintenance is a very good indicator of the care taken of the inside of the property as well. I live in a smallish complex (30 units) that is in impeccable shape. The owner obviously is willing to spend the money necessary to keep the place up (the owner has an on-site management couple, contracting through a property managment company). The apartments are all in good shape, nice applicances, new or nearly new carpet, which is replace every five years at a minimum. Any problem within the apartment is addressed immediately and completely. I love my managers!
No lawn and/or no pool is likely to reduce noise and the number of small children around, which is a plus in my book, but it won’t necessarily eliminate it. Landlords can’t discriminate against renters with children (damn it!) so they have to rent to them. Without a lawn to play on, the kids are going to be playing in the parking lot or on the sidewalks.
The one thing I’d look for that I didn’t think was important when I rented my place was air-conditioning. I don’t know how hot it gets where you are, but my west-facing apartment really heats up in July and August
I just moved from one apartment to another this past weekend. The main reason I moved was rent increased 20%. It turns out, rent went up by about that much across the DFW metroplex in the last couple of years, so while I’m paying the same rent, I moved much closer to work, which will cut down gas and tolls by at least 50%.
Things I really, really looked for:
well kept exteriors. The last place was mowed and weeded, but nothing bigger was being done.
decent floorplan. My last apartment was 700 sq ft, and it felt tiny, because the layout was so poor.
windows. Last place had a few windows, but they were very poorly placed. The apartment was always dark, and I couldn’t get any cross-ventilation.
not the first floor. I never minded hearing my neighbor overhead, but I hated hearing people walk around right outside my bedroom, especially the kids screaming while they played and the adults having drunken fights.
smaller complex.
management that accepts online payments and understands how to use the system. Seriously, the assistant manager messed up THREE TIMES on my payments because I was apparently the only person there who paid online. THe first time, I had an eviction notice waiting for me, because she thought I hadn’t paid my rent.
not under the take-off/landing pattern for an airport. Cannot stress this enough. It took me six months to learn to sleep through jets roaring overhead.
So, I’m now at an older complex ten miles closer to work. The rent is the same. The square footage is a little less, but it’s a far roomier apartment. I have windows facing east and south with shade trees on both side, so I get plenty of natural light. It’s a very quiet complex. I’m also noticing a few other things - the showerhead is actually high enough I can get my head under it without leaning back. The floor is a little uneven in places, but not enough to bug me. Miracle of miracle, there are tons of outlets in every room, and there is even overhead lighting in the living room, dining room, and bedroom. There’s even an overhead sprinkler system in case of fire. It’s kind of a reminder as to how shitty apartment life has gotten in the last fifteen to twenty years. Apartment builders have learned to cut corners everywhere they turn around, and it sucks.