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Okay Dakkanauts I have a serious question and am in need of advice. I've rented an apartment once in my life and that was years ago. I've either lived with some form of family or in military barracks. What should I be looking out for as potential issues?

Are you renting a room in a house share? If so check that they are allowed to do that by whoever is renting the house - basically to see if they are illegally subletting, or if they are acting on behalf of the landlord/letting agent to fill a space.

Check that your deposit etc is going into a proper protected account - I'm not sure what it is like in the US, but there are laws here in the UK which say deposits must be protected either by a third party or in a dedicated account/etc.

If you can get viewings at several times during the day, or at least visit the area at different times. Sometimes people schedule tours at "good times"... when the bar round the corner isn't open and the kids in the local school are in class, when the neighbours aren't in, etc...

Definately check what your rent gets you in terms of utilities, space in the house etc.

Check who else is going to be living there.

If you are renting an apartment (just you):

Check the state laws regarding rental rights, and familiarize yourself with them. Pay close attention to the size of the deposit, and what the legal reasons are for which it can be held. When you first collect the keys, videotape a walkthough or else take photos of everything so that you have a record of any property damage prior to taking up residence (faded paint, stains, chipped anything, scuffed countertops, etc). This will protect you from being held liable for old damage when you move out.

If you are renting a room (in a shared apartment/house):

Don't.

Be wary if the landlord lives in the same building, an ex of mine had this problem in the uk where she fell out with the landlord's son who had just inherited the property, he lived in the basement appt, she lived in the topmost and she was evicted in 24hrs because it was the same property, so she was legally a lodger not a tenant... Not sure how that law is over here in US but something to watch out for, aim for an owner off the premises if I were you. Also, if the neighbor playing the rave music at 3am is your landlord, its more complicated when you lose your temper with them...

Check what the neighbors are like, swing by the area the night before if you can to check for ambient noise rates.

One thing we noticed on moving up to Mass, the second apt we looked at, there was 'oh it's just a precautionary thing' rate for the mother of the landlord, acting as 'agent' to check for history etc, which they were keen to want straight away and 'oh but you'll get it back once we look into your history and you are ok', thing is, there was nothing at all stopping this landlord and her mother from seeing 100 perspective tenants and then saying yes to one set and keeping the investigation fee for all the others.

We went with a property we liked and a landlord we got a good vibe from, a young couple looking to make some minimum fuss money, very by the book and lived a respectable distance away.

 azazel the cat wrote:


If you are renting a room (in a shared apartment/house):

Don't.

I don't really have a choice otherwise Az. Living in the city is expensive as hell, and Colorado has kinda high cost of living any way.

Ah, shared apartment?

Don't move in with a good friend, I've shared with great friends and it can test the hell out of it.

Move in with a relative stranger who you can get along with and maintain a friendly distance. Ensure your bedrooms remain absolute sanctuaries and be clear from the beginning on shared responsibilities, cleaning, parties, guests etc.

Remain open, polite and honest and say when things are not cool, rather than let them fester till they become an amalgamated horror.

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:


If you are renting a room (in a shared apartment/house):

Don't.

I don't really have a choice otherwise Az. Living in the city is expensive as hell, and Colorado has kinda high cost of living any way.

Do ya know anybody in the city? My statement was meant to only apply to strangers.

Not really, I'm sort of out of options at this point.

If you're renting a room in a shared house make sure your contract is just for your share rather than 'rent this whole house and the other tenants can pay you'

you're almost guaranteed somebody will always run out of cash or just move out leaving you stuck with paying their share

Similarly with utilities (if they are not included in the rent ), either get the landlord to pay them & you pay him or let somebody else in the house do it (you might also get separate bills depending on how the house is set up which is ok).

And establish what happens if you end up moving a girlfriend or boyfriend in (or somebody else does)

are you allowed to ?
does your rent change (hopefully not) ?
do your utility bills change ?(they might well go up as you'll probably use more heat/light/air conditioning etc)

Repairs,
what is the landlord responsible for and how long do they have to fix it (imagine the roof starts leaking or the electric goes out)
what are you (the tenants) responsible for (typically if you're just renting a room probably not a lot, but you might be expected to keep cookers/washing machines etc working)

Depends. Where are you? Where do you want to be?

Okay I'm having trouble figuring out if this is a good move or not. I found a room in a townhome with a friend of mine from HS, Karrie, she's cool and we have similiar interests in delicious food stuffs and anime, but with minimal "interest" in each other. Room is kinda small but I'm used to that. $300ish/mo all told (Karrie's mom is the land lady so we have to talk to her) otherwise it's not a bad neighborhood with cool roommates who are both grad students which means I don't have to worry about moving out in the summer, etc. The only hitch is it's about 30 minutes across the city from my college campus... though given how hard it is to find affordable housing in Denver and that my school has no native housing, and kinda leaves it's students to twist in the wind as far as housing goes (I'm the youngest person in the class by like... six years, so it's not unfair to assume they don't need to hold our hands). So should I go with it in the name of a positive living condition and sacrifice the inconvenient transit time?

30 minutes walk or 30 minutes drive?

30 minutes isn't excessive. It takes me longer to get to work every day than that - a 20 minute drive and a 20 minute walk

I will warn you about living in the house of a friend's relative though - I did that during my first time at university and my friend's relative didn't put out deposit in a secured account and ended up keeping the whole lot when we left without us being able to do anything about it.

However, it can give you a little extra lattitude if you pay a little bit late/etc, depending on the relative. But since this place sounds like it is being habitually rented out, I would imagine the relative is a more professional landlord.

If you are studying at a university maybe you could get a dormitory room.

I'm studying at a trade school, as I said it has no native housing, and at 23 I am the youngest of the students by a significant margin, we are adults and treated as such, the school has some preferred rental properties, but they don't really help a single adult male in a low income bracket. Many of the individuals attending school have a partner who works, or are attending while on pension from their first jobs. I will in fact be one of the youngest members of my profession in the country on the completion of my training.

I would go into the school's offices and speak to someone (or ring them up). It is in their interest to see you are housed and they should be able to make suggestions. One of my friends from my first degree was a "mature student" (I think he was the same age as you when he started) - he was unable to get into halls/university housing and the university were able to put him in touch with a number of local landlords.

I have been, they refuse to do or offer any form of roommate coordination with class mates (or provide contact information) they just give me the same few places that are way out of my price range.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So should I go with it in the name of a positive living condition and sacrifice the inconvenient transit time?

Yes.

As has been said, 30 minutes is nothing.

This place you have found sounds pretty good...
30 minutes is fairly good.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Okay I'm having trouble figuring out if this is a good move or not. I found a room in a townhome with a friend of mine from HS, Karrie, she's cool and we have similiar interests in delicious food stuffs and anime, but with minimal "interest" in each other. Room is kinda small but I'm used to that. $300ish/mo all told (Karrie's mom is the land lady so we have to talk to her) otherwise it's not a bad neighborhood with cool roommates who are both grad students which means I don't have to worry about moving out in the summer, etc. The only hitch is it's about 30 minutes across the city from my college campus... though given how hard it is to find affordable housing in Denver and that my school has no native housing, and kinda leaves it's students to twist in the wind as far as housing goes (I'm the youngest person in the class by like... six years, so it's not unfair to assume they don't need to hold our hands). So should I go with it in the name of a positive living condition and sacrifice the inconvenient transit time?

Go for it. 30 minutes is not an unreasonable commute, plus you get to move in with someone you know and the rent is cheap. I bounced around from house to house for 5 years before I emigrated. The job didn't pay well so I was in student land where the leases were only ever for 12 months. In that time I had some great housemates, and a wee terrible ones, but if I could have gotten a place with someone I knew I would have taken it in a heartbeat.