APARTMENT HUNTING TIPS!

So I will start by saying I have just signed a lease for an awesome apartment. It is a 2 bedroom apartment with a huge kitchen, huge living room, 6 windows, 1 bathroom and lots of storage space. It includes 2 beds, 2 desks, a glass top kitchen table with 4 chairs, a stove, washer and dryer, vacuum, dishwasher, refrigerator, lots of cabinets, 2 dressers, 2 lamps, a couch, glass top coffee table with two matching end tables, entertainment center and a lazy boy chair which are all like NEW. Another plus is all utilities, cable, internet and trash services are included in the rent. It is located in a very quiet and safe neighborhood. It is a upstairs/downstairs duplex and I have the downstairs apartment. The guy who lives upstairs is actually the owner and is a very nice guy, he is in his 6th year at the MU vet school. The apartment doesn't allow cats or dogs but that's okay because the owner has a pet horse! By horse I mean THE BIGGEST GREAT DANE I HAVE EVER SEEN!!! So I should feel very safe with that gigantic animal in her pen which runs next to my patio! It is also a plus because I will get to pet and play with the dog without having to clean up after it or feed it, so hey... that's like the perfect pet situation! :) now comes the important question...

How much am I paying for this place?
Well friends the answer is 600.00 a month for everything listed up top. That may sound like a lot but once you start searching you will realize that at a huge apartment complex that same deal may run you at least 1,000 bucks if not more.

I wanted to write this blog to leave a few tips I have learned during the search. I actually started looking at apartments back in February with two friends of mine. Then after a month of searching one of the girls' family decided they wanted her to stay in the Christian Campus House and were not okay with her moving out. So in March we re-started the search with our number being down to 2. We searched for about another month and then my one remaining partner actually started looking into transferring colleges to play softball at another school. Well she still had some time left in season so we agreed to wait until the end of May to see what she had decided and whether she was staying or not. End of May got here and she decided to not stay at MU. So that dropped me down to one, numero uno, all alone without a home.

I searched all summer and in the past couple weeks was really starting to feel like I would never find anything that was affordable. Most 1 bedroom places that were not taken were either the size of a small closet and over priced, or where located in very questionable neighborhoods that would really make me not feel safe to be alone. I happened across an add in the Columbia Tribune for this apartment and decided to not get too excited but to check it out, having gotten my hopes up on articles before only to be let down by someone REALLY over exaggerating there place for rent in the paper. This place however, worked out.

NOW... for some tips and pointers!

1) Make sure when you ask about rent to ask if utilities are included... if they aren't find out the average cost per month for that residence. You can usually do that by calling the city services wherever you are and giving them the address you are interested in. SEVERAL places said they were 300.00 a month and then with utilities would have been at least 500.00! And lots of those did not include internet, cable, washer or dryer, or furniture.

2) Decide if furnished or not furnished would be cheaper. 25-50 bucks extra a month for a furnished place might sound crazy but that adds up to 300-600 for a 12 month lease. Will you pay more than that once you purchase a bed, desk, couch, washer, dryer, microwave etc. This mainly depends on how much you already own, how much you can do without and how new you want your stuff. Garage sales and flea markets are great places to find furniture if you don't mind older fixer-uppers.

3) Do you own a pet? Sometimes apartments require a pet deposit PLUS a per monthly charge. Don't let that hidden cost get you.

4) LAUNDRY... this was a big deal for me because I wanted a washer and dryer. Find out if the place has hook-ups, actual includes machines or just has a coin operated room for everyone. If you are like me, I didn't like the idea of paying 1.00+ for each load in the coin operated machines, especially since some machines don't QUITE hold as much as they should. I figured roughly that a "normal" load for me would most likely be 2-3 for the coin machines and with drying that added to be 5-6 bucks each time I washed. If you do laundry each week that could be like 20 bucks extra a month. That's 240.00 a year, when you can buy a used set of washer dryers for 100-150. (It's true just look on Craigslist.)

4) SAFETY! You can call your police department or even just Google to see what kind of area the place is in. Does the road and surrounding roads pop up in a lot of crime reports and news reports?? Then STAY AWAY!

5) Be sure to consider all the extra things you wouldn't think about right off the top of your head when moving to your own place:
Pots and Pans
Towels and rags
vacuum
plunger
umbrella
blender
utensils
plates, bowls, cups
bedding
cleaning supplies
extension cords
curtains
lawn mower
weight scale
coffee maker
toaster
rugs
light bulbs
shelves
hangers
TOILET PAPER :)
And so on and so forth....

6) What kind of air/heating system does it have? If heated with gas that may be an extra utility bill to pay.

7) Internet? Cable? See if there is already a hook-up for ethernet or a cable hook-up. If you have to get things installed yourself for internet and cable that may be another fee you haven't considered.

8) Parking, is it assigned? Is it well lit? What if you have guests, where do they park?

NOW GET STARTED HERE ARE WAYS TO FIND PROPERTIES:

1) Drive around town and find signs in yards

2) Check online renter search sites such as Apartments.com and Apartment Finder .

3) Don't just take the landlord's word for how the apartment is, ask other residence and check out opinions on site like Apartment Ratings.
THAT RATING SITE REALLY HELPED ME!

Alright guys, hope that this blog helps someone out! Feel free to comment with any questions, concerns, things to add... etc.

THANKS!
Trinity

CHICAGO

I recently took a trip to Chicago and have several pictures to show from that adventure. I have to go through most of them and edit them before posting them on this blog, but I wanted to go ahead and display a panoramic shot I took and then pieced together. (It is actually the one I use under the blog title)

ENJOY!

I'm back and I've brought a few changes...

I haven't wrote for awhile on this blog but I am going to try and bring it to life again. I want to make it a more day to day blog where I share lessons I have learned, pictures I have taken and things I have done. I hope to leave little tips that I have pick up too. Such as good places to eat, shop or visit. I hope to build my following and keep people entertained! Thanks for checking this out and I will leave you with a couple pictures that I have taken recently.

Here are a few portraits I took of a friend and her husband. They are expecting a child and I was able to have a photo-shoot with them.