Apartment hunting for the first time

Kyougu

So it's time for me to get my own place. I'm hoping to do move into my new place by the start of the new year, but my timeline is flexible enough where I can move in before or after.

I have already used forrent.com to find some affordable places that I can find around the area I'm looking for. I also used apartmentrating.com to find at least weed out places that had very low ratings and common complaints. Now I'm scheduling tours of some places this coming Friday.

So what should I be in the look out for? Questions I should ask? Any more research I should do on the places I'm looking? Thanks folks.

dispatch.o

Ask about the insulation. Specifically what it's rated at. This is especially important if utilities arent included. You may save 150$ a month on a place with shitty insulation then spend 300$/month cooling the place in the summer.

-AKIRA-

I've always thought it a good idea to check out the general feel of the apartment complex at various times of the day. Just head over to whatever place you're looking at and walk around for five minutes without any management folks. At the very least, do this once at night to make sure the community doesn't have a problem with young kids blasting music and obnoxiously partying at 2 am.

Entriech

Check the plumbing hookups! Try every faucet, flush every toilet.

Aoi Tsuki

A tip I once read from a realtor that's held up in the four or five apartments I've had, and friends' apartments: check the bathroom(s) of any prospective places. I don't know why, but they're the best barometer of how well-maintained, new, and/or bug-infested a place is, or at least the best indicator you can see on one brief walk through.

MegaMan001

Read the god damn lease before you sign anything.

Take it home, read it, read it again, then read it a few hours later and see if anything fishy stands out. If you don't trust that, ask your parents / trusted adult / someone who has rented before to do it.

If you're a student, your college will have student law aid that can read it and check it for you and see if there is anything stupid in it.

If the place won't let you take the lease home or read it in advance, don't rent there.

Blake T

Run the hot water.

See how hot it is and how long it takes to heat up.

Herschel

For the love of god, check that any potential place is not listed on www.bedbugregistry.com -- particularly if you're looking to get a place at an apartment complex

Daedalus

There are basically two types of apartment, and each has their own issues. You've got your private landlords and your faceless corporations.

For private landlords, here are some warning signs:
1) If he shows up drunk, just walk away. (This has actually happened to me!)
2) If he forgot to bring a copy of the lease, so he just barges into some other apartment without warning to ask them for theirs, run away.
3) If the landlord lives in the same building, you don't want to live there. If he doesn't live in the same county, you also don't want to live there. Trust me.
4) It'll be harder to find feedback on the guy, because he doesn't have as many tenants as a big faceless corp, but you still might be able to (discreetly) ask the current tenants (if any).
5) Even if it's a private landlord, he should have a maintenance guy on call in case shit breaks. Ask him about this. If his answer is "oh, I'm pretty handy, I did half the plumbing and electrical work here myself!" or something along these lines, the answer is "no".

Now, your faceless corporate-owned apartment complexes have different considerations (but are generally about the same level of quality for your first-time apartment).
1) How far is the leasing office from your apartment, and what are its hours? Is it only open while you're at work? If you have a non-emergency problem, that's where you'll need to go.
2) Do they allow tenants to repaint the apartments? This is generally a bad sign; odds are good they just paint over the bright pink walls before moving in the next sucker, and after ten or fifteen layers that shit is going to start flaking everywhere. A big warning sign is if door and cabinet hinges are just painted over; that really means that they've got the cheapest painters in town.
3) The lease will be more sophisticated. If the people working at the leasing office don't even know what the hell is in it, this is a bad sign.
4) Does the rent amount or other fees (pet deposit, etc) in the brochure or advertisement not match the amount in the actual lease agreement? This has also happened to me.
5) If the leasing office people are trying a hard sell (you know, the old "this offer may not be around if you spend a couple days looking at other apartments!"), the correct answer is "Well, if I come back after a couple days and your offer isn't available anymore, I'll just go with whatever apartment was next on my list."
6) When checking feedback and reviews online, look up any other complexes owned by the same company and check the feedback for them as well.

And, of course, the stuff that's common to all apartments:
check the plumbing fixtures
check a random sampling of electrical sockets (if they only have ungrounded sockets, leave, because if the electric is stone-age, so is everything else)
check the doorknob! Is it worryingly loose?
Look behind the refrigerator, in the crack between the stove and countertop, etc. for telltale mouse droppings, that sort of thing.
Does the place have on-site laundry, and if so, how many quarters do you need?

lifeincognito

Do not go alone when you visit apartments if possible, bring whoever is willing to go with you. The larger your group, the more eyes and varied trains of thought you will get coming back with questions for whoever is showing you the apartment. Not only this, but it actually takes more time, for say 3 or 4 people, to complete the whole process, as opposed to just you, so you'll spend more time in the apartment and give the person showing you around more to worry about as well. Make them sweat it out to see how well trained they are so all the pressure isn't on you to sign now because it is going away in two days to another renter. Good luck.

Hypatia

Check the water pressure of the shower, check with the electric company to see the average monthly bill in summer and winter, look at the trimming in the bathroom to see if there's water damage, check what direction the apartment is facing so you have an idea of how much sun you're going to get, ask about what the rules are on pets (are there any there now, are they allowed, have there been any in the apartment before, etc), check out the kitchen appliances carefully if you cook (does the stove have markings for the burners or is it just "on" and "off", are the burners all disgusting, is there food in the crack between the stove and counter that might cause a bug problem when you get there, etc), are the screens on the windows ripped, etc.

GoodOmens

Check the basement of the apartment if possible. This applies more to buying, but it's always good to look even when renting. Look (and smell) for any signs of water, mold, foundation cracks, etc.

Try to find out about the state of the roof, water heater, furnace and AC. Ask the super for the maintenence records, when each was last inspected and serviced. If those aren't available, don't live there.

Take pictures of everything while you take a look, and just before you move in. Make sure they're time-stamped.

If the super hesitates to provide you with any reasonable information, walk away.

Zul the Conqueror

One thing I ran into that is a bit of a hassle for me: not all apartment complexes have month-to-month or lease break clauses. Meaning if you want to leave at a time other than the day your lease comes up, you are responsible for paying the remainder of the lease. So, something worth asking (or reading in the lease as others have pointed out.)

Dog

Daedalus wrote: »

3) If the landlord lives in the same building, you don't want to live there.

Just wanted to throw out a disagreement to this based on personal experience, although this might be more of the exception rather than the norm. My landlord lives next door (I live in a carriage house, he lives in the main house) and he is really awesome about everything (I've been living here for a little over 2 years), any issues I've had in the apartment are promptly fixed and I've never really had any problems with him.

Hypatia

robothero wrote: »

Daedalus wrote: »

3) If the landlord lives in the same building, you don't want to live there.

Just wanted to throw out a disagreement to this based on personal experience, although this might be more of the exception rather than the norm. My landlord lives next door (I live in a carriage house, he lives in the main house) and he is really awesome about everything (I've been living here for a little over 2 years), any issues I've had in the apartment are promptly fixed and I've never really had any problems with him.

Yeah, my best landlord was one who lived in the same building and he was really awesome about addressing issues

Dog

Another thing I just thought of, I've only been through a management company once, all the rest of my rentals have been through a private owner, and the former was easily the worst.

Lurk

Landlords are dicey. I have an awesome landlord right now, but my earlier was the devil.

Kyougu

Thanks for all the tips guys. I'm looking at an apartment today which is 15 minutes away from work, which is convenient. Still, have more to look at on Friday, and in not much hurry, so I'm definately taking my time and not committing to anything.

I'll update more when I go see them.