How To Score The Perfect College Housing For You

It’s that time of year again where you need to start looking into where you are going to live for the next school year. Your new housemates are going to be stressing about it, you’re going to be stressing about it, and your parents are going to be calling and texting you about it, stressing you out more!

Housing can be hard to deal with because it is time sensitive, but don’t let that rush your decision and push you into committing to a place you don’t love. Here are some things that go into finding the perfect student housing apartments.

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List your qualifications.

No place is going to have every little thing you want, but it is important to list everything! Make your list and then compare it with who you are going to be living with to see which big things line up. I’d say aim for at least five things that you don’t want to settle on.

My things were: Close to campus (since I don’t have a car), washer/dryer, having a single room, dishwasher, and safe neighborhood. While it took a bit for me to find a place with my roomies, we did end up in one that had all of those qualifications.

In finding student apartments, you can’t be overly picky of course, but you do have to know what you want and what will make your living experience more enjoyable.

Get some help.

There are tons of free online tools that will help you find housing, especially housing that will meet your needs. My site of choice is Trulia, though all of them are pretty helpful. You can search by price or room numbers if you want it to stay simple and see what options you have, or you can do an advanced search with everything you want and see what you find. You are able to search counties as well as cities, so if location isn’t as much of an issue, you can look a bit further from school so you can score some cheap housing.

With these sites, you can save houses to look at them later, can share your saved houses with your roommates and parents, and have all the contact info at your fingertips so you can easily set up an appointment with the owner or realtor.

Some school websites can also help you navigate which areas you should be looking into, so make sure to check there as well or in your housing office! Uloop.com and collegestudentapartments.com are some other great options to look into.

Start early.

If you want to get something that meets basically everything on your list, you are going to have to start looking early. Sites like Trulia allow you to create notifications, so whenever new apartments and houses are up for rent that meets your needs, the site will shoot you an email. Since housing tends to open at random times, the sooner you start looking, the more options you will have. It would really suck to have to settle on something you hate just because you started too late.

Starting early also takes some of the stress away, and allows you to research housing in smaller increments, since it is time consuming and you of course still have homework to do.

Go to see the place.

Do not blindly accept a place based on its pictures or how good the owner makes it sound over the phone! You don’t know how dated the photos are, so you want to go and scout it out for yourself. Take a measuring tape along and a camera of some sort, to take measurements for furniture and pictures for memory. You might think you’d remember, but after seeing four or more places, things start to get muddled.

If you don’t love it at first glance, keep that feeling in mind. There might be a better place out there for you. You are going to be living there for at least a year, so you want to have some sort of excitement when you walk in.

Make sure to look for damage, mold, or things that just look too old to function. You don’t want to end up in a place that breaks down on you. When looking at the bedrooms, think of the size differences and what that will mean in terms of splitting the rent with your roommates. Will you be able to afford it? And when it comes to how many bathrooms it has, will it be enough?

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Have paperwork ready.

There are some basic housing forms you can print off online if the owner or realtor doesn’t specify what they want from you. Even if you aren’t sure if you’ll like the place, you want to have some paperwork filled out and ready to go! If you like the place, you want to lock it down ASAP, because chances are, there are other students interested.

Having paperwork ready is essential if you are going to an open house. You want to show that you are serious, responsible, and really want the place (bonus points if you dress professionally). Do not give them any money at this point, but let them know if you are completely down for the place or just interested but still not sure. The more sure your answer is, the better your chances.

Good luck out there, and may the housing be ever in your favor!