4 Tips to Make an Apartment Search Quick and Painless

An apartment search takes time, and it can be difficult to fit around a hectic work or school schedule. It’s even harder when you’re hunting for apartments in another state, and are not familiar with the area. To save time, you must use ways to start and finish an apartment search effectively. Use the following 4 tips to make your apartment search quick and painless:

1. Know Your Budget Ahead of Time

You waste time not knowing how much rent you can afford prior to your apartment search. The only way you can know that is to create a budget. Use a budget software program to simplify this task, such as Quicken. Enter all your income and expenses, as well as money that you plan to save monthly. This will help you to see how much rent you can afford, which should be less than 30 percent of your income if at all possible. This speeds up the apartment search, because you ignore rents that exceed what you’ve budgeted for.

2. Use Your iPhone

If you’ve got an iPhone, then use a free app to find an apartment. There are many available, such as the MyNewPlace.com apartment search app. Enter your search requirements and you’ll get apartments sent to your phone, according to your specifications. You can even email the landlord from your phone, or save searches to view later. The only limitation is that you may not find a house for rent or a duplex or other smaller unit. These apps tend to find larger apartment communities. However, if that’s what you’re looking for, then you should use an iPhone apartment search app for most of your search.

3. Apartment Broker

Apartments in many major metro areas are so hard to come by, and the competition is so high, that the only solution is to hire the services of an apartment broker. When you find one, you’re in fact transferring the headaches involved with an apartment search, making the process for you quicker and painless. The only drawback are the fees involved with paying a broker. It can equal one month’s rent or 10 to 15 percent of the rent. However, if you’re not located in the city, or if time is short and you’re not turning up any leads yourself, you may need to budget for that service. Real estate agents may offer apartment brokering services, and it’s a good idea to shop around for reputable real estate companies to see what they charge.

4. Rule out Neighborhoods

Make a list of neighborhoods that you won’t move to for whatever reason, such as a high crime rate or high employment rates. When you’re moving to a new apartment in the same city or town, it’s easy to generate a list because you know the area. If you’re moving to a new city or town, you’ll have to do some research up front. This will make your apartment search easier, because if an apartment turns up in your iPhone app, or if you find something on www.craigslist.com that’s on your list, you can rule it out right away.

These tips will help to streamline your apartment search, and make it go much quicker.