One of the biggest inconveniences of the moving process is finding a new place to move. While moving itself can be quite a hassle, professional movers can usually be quite useful into preventing you from having to overexert yourself. Locating a new residency, however, can be a whole other ball game.
If you are moving to a new city or are stuck between buying and selling a house, apartments are typically the best option when finding a new place to live, whether it be permanent or temporary. Due to the abundance of choices when searching for an apartment, one may find himself or herself confused or frustrated when picking an apartment to move into. The following are a few recommendations one can take into consideration when apartment hunting.
First of all, finding an ideal location within the city you are moving to. One should do some research on the different areas of the city to find the most convenient and safe, as well as the most cost-effective location to move to. One site I recommend is www.neighborhoodscout.com. This website allows you to enter the city you are looking at and subsequently create a Google satellite graph that gives a layout of city, along with a Crime Index (violent and property) of that city. For bigger cities, this will allow you to see which areas have the worst crime index and which of the least. This information is useful when picking out an area to live in, as one can have a better idea of where crime is more common within an area. Another factor that may be useful when picking out an apartment, if you have children, may be the quality of schools within the area. District websites will usually provide reports indicating which schools are performing the best.
Secondly, one should use an apartment locator website, such as rent.com, to search for apartments in the areas that seem to be the most appealing. Rent.com will list apartments within this area and allow users to find ones that have vacancies as well as parse out other data that may come in handy (apartment layouts and pet policies, etc.). Often times these websites will run specials that will give you a $100 gift card, or some other incentive for using their services.
Keep in mind when looking for an apartment that most complexes will require deposits and may do a criminal background check. If you have pets, it is important to understand that you will be paying extra money for a pet deposit, and that there are many complexes that will limit the number of pets you have, or refuse to rent to a tenant that has any.