Hey guys, it's Suzanne with Arvabelle.
In this video we're going to go over some
of the things that you need to do in order to get your first apartment. So if
you are among the many graduating seniors right now, whether you're getting
out of high school or college or you're just moving out on your own for the
first time, congratulations and welcome to the expensive world of being an adult
and not knowing what to do.
Join us! It's a great time.
So I'm also going to put a
link in the description box down below where you can go and download a free PDF
that just has a checklist of things to look for in your apartment.
So you can print it out, take it with you, have it next to you while you're looking online
whatever you want to do it's there for you. Basically in this video I'm just
going to walk through how to know if you can afford an apartment, how to actually
find the apartment, make sure it's in a safe area, some scams that you need to
watch out for because Craigslist is a sketchy place, as well as some things
that you can do to protect yourself and your money - like your security deposit
when you move into your apartment.
Going into the first thing. You really need to
figure out a budget. Gather your bank statements or credit card statements
whatever you have from the last few months and really figure out your
spending habits. How much are you spending on groceries? On transportation?
On clothing? You need to take all of those into account and then add on the
price of the apartment.
Now let me tell you
going to look at apartment is a
little bit like walking into the dollar store. You go in there thinking that
you're getting something for a dollar. You take it to the cash register and
they're like, "five dollars please".
There are always going to be extra fees extra
costs added on to whatever price of the apartment that you see online. So you
need to figure out what those extra fees are. Is there an application fee? A fee
for pets? Multiple pets? Multiple roommates? What's the parking situation?
The laundry situation? Are utilities included? Is it furnished - is furniture
included? If you're moving into a house instead of an apartment, do you have to
pay a homeowner's association fee? Do you have to pay a yard fee? Do you need to
pay for an alarm or security system?
Also just be prepared to show
proof of income because in a lot of higher demand or higher-end areas, you're
required to make three times the monthly rent. It's also a good idea to kind of
figure out what you're going to do for furniture. At first it really doesn't
matter. Just get free furniture from family, or friends, or Craigslist or the
thrift store - wherever. Just get cheap furniture. You can update your furniture
later on. Whatever you do, don't go into these expensive furniture stores that
are offering no-money-down and only pay $60 a month to get this big fancy thing.
They charge insanely high interest rates and they kind of expect you to not be
able to pay it back. Then they hike up your interest rate even more, and you
can't pay that either. So then it just ends up ruining your credit. So the
bottom line is, just know what you can afford, have a budget, and don't go crazy
buying things that you don't need. So now getting into actually finding an
apartment online. So I personally like to use Apartments.com or ApartmentGuide.com
but if you are looking to rent a house or more of a condo/townhouse type
situation, Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia - any of those. Those are going to have more
options for houses. Once you're on one of these websites, just go ahead and enter
your budget into the max price. Even go a little bit lower so that you can account
for fees and stuff later. Sometimes on these apartment websites, instead of
actually listing the price it will say "call for availability". In some places
like New York or Los Angeles you will actually have to call to get the price
but otherwise like 9 times out of 10 you can find the price either on one of
the other websites, or you can Google that specific apartment complex and find
it there. And if you can it's good to find this information beforehand, even if
it's an old price. Then when you do call to find out the current price, they know
that you know what it was listed at before, and they can't rip you off. The
most important thing is to read reviews and especially read the bad reviews.
And that's actually that's why I like using the websites that are specifically for
apartments, because they already have reviews built into their system
but in addition to those, go and look at Google reviews and go and look at
Facebook reviews because sometimes on some of the sketchy
apartments they'll have one five-star review on one website, but then on every
other website, they'll have like a million one-star reviews and that is
definitely 100% a red flag. So if you don't go that route and you
instead choose to look on Craigslist or Facebook you need to be aware of all
these scams that are out there because there are quite a few. So usually if
how these will go down is you'll see a really cheap apartment or an apartment
that just looks like a good deal, you'll contact the person, they'll reply and
they'll give you some excuse as to why you can't see the apartment. They'll
either be like "oh sorry I'm out of town um"
"I'll be back in like two weeks" or something "but like send the deposit now"
or they'll be like "there are so many people looking at this apartment you
need to put down a deposit right now so that we know that you're serious about
it". Basically, just never give anyone money before you go and actually see the
apartment in person. In some cases you may feel like you don't have time to go
look for an apartment. Like if you just got a job and you have to be across the
country in three days, I would go one of two routes. First, which I personally
think is a better option - just get a hotel for a few days or week - however
long you need to until you can go and physically find a place. Because I would
rather spend $500 at a hotel than give $500 to a random person on Craigslist. If
you absolutely cannot go look and maybe you're moving into a roommate situation
that you found on Facebook or you are renting from someone on Craigslist, there
is something that you can do to try to make sure that it's more legitimate.
Ask whoever made the listing to either FaceTime you or Skype you, and make sure
that you're seeing their face talking to you as they walk around the apartment.
Don't let them send you pictures, don't let them send you videos, it's so easy to
pull a picture off the internet or put a voiceover over a video. Just try to check
and make sure that they are legit people. Bottom line is you really should go look
at it in person. There's such an easy way to check if the apartments that you're
looking at are in safe areas. So if you Google "Trulia crime map"
and the city that you're moving to, you can pull up this map that shows all the
plotted points of where crimes have occurred and it gives you this nice
little color gradient as you can see and the darker blue areas are just where
more crimes occur. So that's a good way to see if the apartment that you found
for a great price is in a great area. Also just when you go to tour the
apartment complex, ask people who are walking around if they like it.
Especially if you're a young woman, if you see other women walking around ask
if they feel safe. If there's no one walking around, go and knock on people's
doors they'll either tell you that they love it,
they hate it, or you'll find out that they're just straight-up crazy.
Also if you can, just come back and drive through the area at night because it may look
fine during the day but you may not really want to be out and about at night.
Probably the most stressful part of finding an apartment is dealing with the
lease. So first you want to find out what kind of lease it is. Especially if you
are moving to a college town because sometimes they'll make it to where
you're responsible for only paying your room's lease to the landlord, and
sometimes they'll want all of the roommates to collectively gather their
money and one person will just pay it to the landlord.
You need to find out how long your lease is. Is it 6 months? 12 months? 18 months?
And you also need to ask how to properly break your lease because in the event
that, I don't know, you lose your job or you have to move out for whatever reason
you need to know the terms of ending your lease early so that that doesn't
follow you on your rental history and ruin your credit. So you also need to
just keep track of basic things like when is your rent due? Is there a grace
period where you can pay rent late? And if so is there a fee for that? Is it rent
controlled? Are you locked into the price that you sign your lease for or can they
raise the price? And if they do raise it how often do they usually do that and by
how much are they raising it? So if it is your first apartment you'll probably
need a co-signer and all that is, is usually a parent or older sibling
someone that already has a credit history established and maybe a rental
history. It basically means that if you are unable to pay your rent, they
will be responsible for paying it. So if you don't have a co-signer you will need
to have good credit. That's a whole other topic but if you want to see a video on
maybe how to establish credit fix bad credit I can make a video on that so
just leave a comment down below. Just ask the leasing office any
questions that you have. Like if you get locked out of your apartment do they
have a number that you can call? Or if the dishwasher breaks, or I don't know,
a window breaks, do they have on-site maintenance workers
that will come out and fix it for you? So they have a list of contractors that you
can call? Or are you responsible for finding that? And finally keeping your
money honey because they want your security deposit real bad. When you go to
sign your lease, before you sign, ask to tour YOUR unit. Not a similar unit. The
unit that you will be living in. The reason for this is because apartments
love to pull this little trick where they'll show you the newest most updated
apartment, have you sign for a "similar" unit, and then it won't be like the
apartment that you looked at - at all. Really the only reason that they
wouldn't be able to show you the apartment is if there's someone
currently occupying it, and if that's the case ask them to include a page in the
contract - that they sign and that you sign - that has the floor plan and any
finishes that you're expecting in the apartment or whatever else.
Always always always always get a copy of your contract and leasing agreement.
So this is just kind of a precaution to take but if you're subleasing from
someone or you're moving in with roommates ask them to see their original
contracts. Because in some cases someone may have signed their original lease for
$1000 and be trying to rent it to you for like $1400 or
something like that. So it's just better to see it and know that up front, decide
if you're ok with that, and then just go from there. Just don't let people take
advantage of you. When you lease an apartment you will have to put down a
security deposit. That's basically just some amount of money that they decide on.
They will keep that money if there are damages that you caused. Now they will
also keep that money sometimes if you can't prove that you didn't cause the
damages. So the best way to protect yourself against this
is to record a video of your apartment. Do like a little apartment tour before
you move anything in. Take pictures. Record everything. Say the date in the
video. And that way, when you move out if there's any dispute over whether or not
something was damaged, you have that video as proof. Having a video like that
is also super helpful for my final point which is renter's insurance. Just get it
it's good to have it covers you if something stolen, if your unit catches on
fire, or like if your neighbor floods their unit and the ceiling falls in and
ruins all your furniture. I don't know, stranger things have happened. In the
event that you do have to make a claim with your insurance company, if you
already have a video that shows what was in your apartment, then they know what
was in there, you know what was in there, and it should be good if you have to
make a claim.
So I hope this video was helpful. I will link the checklist that I
was talking about in the description box below. If you like this video be sure to
give it a thumbs up. Subscribe. Follow us on social media. Go check out our blog
Arvabelle.com and share this with a friend that's looking for an apartment.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next week.
Oh also, pro tip -
when you're moving into your apartment bring a roll of toilet paper
because you'll need it.
Bye