Things you wish you knew when you got your first place

[george graves]

Another scam apartment complexes do is to have at least one apartment ready for rent. You go there, check it out, you fill out a rental form, and give them a $25-$35 payment for a credit check. Seems legit.

Yes, they will eventually rent that place, but not before another unit is ready.

The scam is they are collecting $25 credit check fee from every sucker looking at the place - but they don't run a credit check on each application - they only do it for people they like/think might be a good tenant. Times that buy 4-5 people a day, 30 days a month, it's $3k-4k in extra income potentially.

[Das Delfin]

no garage no deal.

This. Especially since I want to buy a 4x4 for the winter and move the bmw over to classic car insurance. The gf is slowly coming around (to both ideas ;) )

[naplesE30]

Take pics of everything before moving in. Stains, wall dings, etc. I swear in college landlords had a real racquet with charging outrageous deposits and then keeping them no matter what, espc with guys apartments. Also a messy person can live with a clean person, but a clean person cant live with a messy one.

[Nick_S]

no garage no deal.

[Rustyduktape]

Yep. Troll the "Free" section religiously......you'd be surprised at all the useful things people just want to get rid of.

haha, very true. a teacher of mine would always find furniture people were giving away. I'd help him move it and he'd buy me beer. worked out pretty well.

[anabolice30]

^funny guy. in middle school i lived in a townhouse after my parents split. A white lady with a mixed child lived next door and all through the night you could hear her screaming and stomping up and down her stairs and slamming doors. Shit was unreal, I feel so sorry for that kid, i didnt have the nuts to say anything back then though.

[george graves]

Be on the top floor!!!! Do not ever, have anyone above you!!!

Ditto. When I was a 20-something renter, I had a nice place on the top floor of a 3 story complex just for this exact reason. Yes, lugging groceries up sucks, but the THUMP-THUMP-THUMP above you will make you feel like you're low class. It's almost a psychological thing...speaking of that.

I had a downstairs neighbors at that complex who would complain to management about me "walking around at night" once, then twice and then three times. (he was one of those multi-level marketing guys - a total d-bag.) He would never approach me, or ask me, just keep trying to get me "written up". Turns out it's not against the rules to "walk" across the the place you pay for - no matter the hour. I wasn't stomping my feet, just walking! But...after the second time, I soon learned to walk with an extra heavy foot.

(now I'm more of a forgive and forget kind of guy - but back then, it was fun to make the guy's life miserable)

[F34R]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention.

A few cast iron pans is worth 1,000 cheap ones. I literally have 1 pan that I cook everything in.

This^

[anabolice30]

Thanks guys, this is all great advice. I'm definitely gonna check out buy it for life. Ideally I'd like to live in a tiny house on a trailer in the woods, but that's not in the cards right now.

[Stanley Rockafella]

call it luck of the draw, but all three places my GF and I lived in we were surrounded by older people who were quiet after 10....so we were too.

Where there was a complaint of noise, it usually went away within a few days.

[LateFan]

try to avoid apartment complexes if you can. they suck. the neighbors often suck too.

Our first landlord borrowed money from US! Never saw any of it. That was creepy and awkward. Then there were really sketchy places across the alley so even though our apt was fine, strange stuff was going on right outside, and tons of traffic noise.

[bikerjim2000]

Be on the top floor!!!! Do not ever, have anyone above you!!! Oh and lockup your valuables, its not the roommate, its their friends.............

[MoparJ]

craigslist is your friend

Yep. Troll the "Free" section religiously......you'd be surprised at all the useful things people just want to get rid of.

Oh, and if you want to get all or most of your deposit back when you move out, make people take their shoes off before trudging on the carpets and don't put too many holes in the walls. ;)

[george graves]

check out the subreddit Buy it for life

Awesome - I'll have to remember that one.

[rzerob]

Talk to the potential neighbors about their neighbors. If you ask them what kind of neighbor they are they will likely tell you they can walk on water. But the guy two houses down he is an ass who has loud parties every Saturday. And when you talk to the guy who is supposedly an ass he will tell you the neighbor you just talked to is a tattle tale and calls the cops if you rev your car too loud. People are hesitant to talk to you about themselves but usually don't mind telling you about people they have a problem with.