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Everyone who has ever rented knows how difficult it is to find the right apartment on a budget.  But you don’t have to have a big bankroll to get a great rental, you just need to follow these eight steps. Oh, and if you are buying a house, you can use nearly the same method, just swap 'landlord' with 'seller'.
1. Find the Right Neighborhood
To cut to the chase, try to narrow your choices to owner occupied buildings in residential single family neighborhoods. They might offer fewer amenities but if the landlord lives upstairs, he’ll show up to fix the plumbing at two o’clock in the morning.
You’ll find the sweetest little apartments in owner occupied houses with illegal mother-in-law units. It always helps if they come without the mother-in-law and if you’re lucky, the owners might throw in a little patch of dirt where you can grow a vegetable garden.
But the biggest reason to live in a residential single family neighborhood is the people living there tend to care more about their neighborhood.
2. Be Fussy - Make Sure You Want To Live There
I’ve always been particular about where I choose to spend the night. So I’m sort of partial to clean safe places where I don’t have to pack heat under my pillow and can take a walk after sunset. A view helps but I’ll only pay so much for that perk.
The first rule of scoring the perfect apartment is to never forget that you’ll end up living there after you sign the lease. If your first impression tells you it’s a crappy pit hole, it’s unlikely to improve with the passage of time. So be prepared to pay an extra fifty to get what you want because if you don’t like it, you’ll try to escape your confines and go somewhere else where you’re likely to drop a little change.
3. Look For An Apartment That Is Well Maintained
We often hear about ‘pride of ownership.’ Well, it follows that you should always search for an apartment you can boast about. If the apartment building is run down – it tells you everything you need to know about the landlord and the tenants. Just move on and forget about it or you’ll be dealing with broken water pipes and leaky roofs until your lease comes up for renewal.
4. Know the Market Comps
Before you screen your first apartment, know how much you should be paying. Look at Craigslist or a local apartment guide and get a good grasp on what the going rate is. Drive by a few places to see what the building looks like vs. the cost. Check out a half dozen places to square the prices with what you get for them. You’ll have a good handle of the market fairly quickly and that should make it easier to spot a deal. With dozens or hundreds of listings to choose from, rents for comprable units can vary widely. If the average 2 bedroom apartment is $1,300 a month, in many markets you’ll have a $200 swing either way. Deals go quickly, so make sure you are monitoring your information sources every day.
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