3 Things To Contemplate In Your Appropriate Apartment Search

By Danielle Wirsansky on June 18, 2017

Picking an apartment can be one of the most exciting things you do while enrolled in college (outside of classes, of course!). It is your opportunity to find the place that you will be calling home for the next several months, if not a year, of your life. But sometimes in the eagerness to spread our wings and fly away from the nest we overlook some details that we find out are much more important than we had considered farther down the line. Living off campus and in your own apartment should be a positive experience. In order to make it so, read on to find out how to pick an apartment that is actually appropriate for you!

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Location, Location, Location

The first thing you need to consider is where you want to live. How close do you want or need to live to campus? If you do not have a car, living a far off distance from the campus is not advisable. Does your university have an off campus transportation system? If so, does it stop near the apartment you are considering? How long would it take you to get to campus? Are you even willing to ride the bus?

Then you must judge if it is important which side of campus that you live near. If you plan to walk, you do not want to have to cross the entire expanse of the university on foot to get to class. Perhaps you think that living next to the stadium is a great idea—but what about the noise of every game? Will you be able to hear it or even sleep through it? Unless you plan on being at every single sporting event, you may not enjoy the proximity.

Another deliberation you must make is the apartment’s proximity to the stores you frequent. Is there a grocery store nearby? Do you like the restaurants around it? Being in comfortable surroundings makes a big difference to how happy you are where you are living. If you have to schlep twenty minutes each direction to get groceries, you will quickly lose patience.

Safety is also key. Do you feel safe in the area where the apartment is located or even in the apartment complex itself. If you would not feel comfortable walking from where your car is parked at night to your apartment itself, then the apartment might not be the right fit for you. Feeling safe is a major component of being comfortable in your own home.

The questions to consider about this are endless.

Rent

Another aspect of choosing an appropriate home is figuring out what an appropriate rent to pay is for you. Everyone has their own budget that must be taken into account. There is no point going to look at an apartment where the individual rent you pay would be $800 when you know you can only afford $400 in rent. It might be a gorgeous apartment that fits all your other requirements, but being able to afford where you are living and then being able to feed yourself are important factors as well. You might end up majorly regretting your life choices when you are eating ramen for the second full week in a row because your rent was way out of budget.

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Amenities

While amenities certainly should not be the first item on the list you check for when searching for an appropriate apartment, you should still check them out. Pool access is great and all, but the amenities or concessions you should be looking at first are what utilities does the apartment complex offer? Will they pay your water or internet bill for you? Are they going to provide you with your own washer/dryer, and if so, for how much? Knowing the answers to these questions can make or break your apartment choice because it all adds up. Do they have a gym you can use? Do they offer any security? You should meet the staff members that work in the apartment complex, see how speedy they are with repairs, and how they deal with emergencies. Make sure that you both like and know how the staff will react to any issues you may have while living there.

You want to feel safe in your apartment but you also want to have all the things that you need, that you utilize in your everyday life, and you need to be able to afford it. Remember to take these items into account the next time you go apartment hunting!

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