While some students opt to stay home and commute for their college years, many other students move out to live on their own for college. Dorms may be the go-to for many first-year students, but students often seek alternate housing options for their later years. Finding the perfect student apartment can be pretty tough, especially when you are mainly considering a lower college student budget and a location that wouldn’t keep you far from campus.
Not sure where to start on your hunt for the perfect student apartment for your college years? Keep reading for tips for finding a fabulous student apartment!
Go to your fellow students for advice
No one understands what you’ll need out of an apartment more than your fellow students. Everyone has different apartment needs – what works for a family of three isn’t always going to work for a group of students looking for a shared apartment. You can always scour the internet for reviews of local apartment communities, but you never quite know how reliable these reviews are, or who the people behind these reviews are. Rather than relying on nameless reviews, refer to fellow college students for their brutally honest reviews of the apartments they have lived in, or are currently living in.
Ask them what the community was like. Were students the general population of the apartment community, with parties or louder tenants to be expected? Or did the apartment community have tenants that were older or had families? The latter may not be a big deal for most, but it may mean you’ll be hearing a lot more sounds associated with young children living in close proximity, or noise complaints made on you if you want to throw noisier get-togethers in a community full of older folks who want more quiet at home. Getting to know the general vibe of an apartment, as understood by fellow students, can help you get the right fit for your college apartment.
Ask students what they liked and didn’t like about the apartment community? Was property management attentive to any requests or complaints? Were they overly attentive and harsh toward student renters, or were they laid back about their policies? Was the parking or commuting situation ideal? For example, many apartment communities will limit every unit to one to two parking spaces. For college students with multiple roommates that all have a car, this can be a tricky situation, especially when there’s limited street parking to work with. If parking wasn’t available, was it easy to commute to campus via walking, bike or bus? These are the types of questions that fellow students would best be able to answer.
Look for apartments that aren’t typically marketed toward college students
If you live in a college town, or are planning to live anywhere near a college campus, you are bound to see countless apartment advertisements that boast being “student-friendly.” While these apartments usually aren’t affiliated with the university, they have features that college students typically look for: proximity to campus, furnished units, a community with a majority of college students, and so on. While these may be your go-to choices, don’t be afraid to branch out during your apartment search.
If you are lucky enough to have a car and don’t mind a longer commute, try searching for apartments that are a bit further away. While you lose out on the proximity to campus, you may find yourself with cheaper rent, better amenities, and more options than you would get around campus. Plus, if you are looking for a quieter living space, being further away from a campus may land you with less noisy students as your neighbors.
Tour the apartment and property
There is only so much information you can get about an apartment from viewing photos online, reading reviews, and talking to property management. Unfortunately, things are not always as they seem and photos posted online to showcase a property can be severely outdated, or just be a highly-edited/staged version of what the property actually looks like. With that being said, tour the property, and apartment unit, whenever possible.
Many properties allow potential tenants to get a tour of the property grounds, letting them have a glimpse of the property’s amenities like the gym, pool, laundry rooms, and so on. Properties may also have vacant units or units dedicated to showing potential tenants interested in the property.
On your own time, you can take your own walk around the property on a random day to see how the property is managed on a day-to-day basis. Is the property in a state of disarray with unkempt grounds, such as lingering trash around the property, broken windows, and trip hazards in the parking lot or sidewalks.
Your college student apartment doesn’t have to be a nightmare you can laugh on when you look back on ten years down the road. With these tips in mind, you can find yourself in the best college living situation possible.
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