Apartment Property

The Essential Things to Do When Renting an Apartment

Searching for an apartment can be a full-time job in itself and is very daunting, especially if you can’t find the right apartment by your move out deadline. Ideally, start looking for your new place at least 30 days form when your lease is up. This will help you avoid choosing a substandard apartment, out of compulsion, just to have a place to live. Your city may have many apartments, but choosing the right one, in the right part of town and in the right neighborhood is very important. Taking care of some important things will help you make searching for your new apartment less of a hassle.

The Essential Things to Do When Renting an Apartment:

· Planning

It is the initial step required when you have decided to start looking for a new apartment. Planning will help you identify the basic things required for a hassle-free move into your new rental home. It is a road map that will keep you on track to finding your next perfect apartment home. Planning ahead keeps you on target to achieve your moving date, helps you find the right location, the right type of apartment and amenities you need and a strategy that will give you success in your apartment search. First, start searching by informing your friends and co-workers that your are searching for an apartment. This will give you some excellent leads because recommendations by others, especially people you know, often leads to finding a very good apartment home.

· Executing

Once you have a good search strategy in place, it time to implement that strategy. First, go online to the many apartment search sites and begin compiling a list of possible apartments. Once you have an exhaustive list, begin making calls to the property managers to find out which properties have apartments available. Once you have a list of apartment communities that have units available, organize your list by location in order to save you time and money when you go out to look at these apartments. While you’re out, keep an eye out for vacancy signs. Get the information from these signs and write down the apartment information like the exterior, cleanliness, parking and pets. If it passes the visual inspection, make a note and then call the apartment manager to see if the rest of the apartment information meets your living requirements.

· Meet the Management

Apartment mangers are usually available on weekdays. Some are available on weekends. When you meet with the office manager, be aware of how friendly and helpful they are. Inform the manager that you are responding to the ad you saw. The office manger should let you know when the apartment will be available, and offer any information about the complex and surrounding neighborhood. During this visit with the property manager, this is your time to look at the unit, and ask questions, do not assume anything. Write down what you liked or did not liked about the apartment.

· Thorough Analysis

Searching for an apartment is a time consuming venture. You’ll need lots of patience. You’ll make lots of calls. Remember, not every apartment manager will call you back. Press on and don’t get discouraged. Everything is first come, first serve. Keep your options open. Just because you turn in an application, does not mean you have to take the apartment. Try to speak with the residents to get a real assessment of what it’s like to live there, or go online and read apartment reviews from the previous tenants. Do thorough research before making a decision. Remember, you’ll be locked into a lease for at least 6 months, so make the best possible decision you can. Take your time to decide.

These essential things will help you make the right choices and help you enjoy living at your new apartment.

Classic Cars – Muscle Cars – Fast Cars

Vacation Apartments, The Good And The Bad

Strata titled holiday apartments on the east coast of Australia first came about well over a quarter of a century ago as a means of building holiday accommodation in large building complexes without the whole resort being owned by a single identity.

A ten story building could then be built with each separate apartment sold off to the public and one of the apartments to a resident manager who maintained the whole resort. They kept the gardens maintained, cleaned the pool and generally looked after the building. The other role they played was to rent out the apartments of owners to vacationers as an onsite real estate agent.

All this looks great and while the building is relatively new doesn’t cause any great problems.Once the apartments become aged and in need sprucing up a bit it is up to each owner to then renovate their own apartment. Many owners don’t understand or simply refuse to update to a standard you would like to stay in on holiday. Older buildings can then have a variety of standards of accommodation and not all apartments look like the glossy brochures you see.

Apartment managers actively encourage owners to update, as the quality of apartments on offer, if left to decline will adversely affect there business.

It is important that you either check with managers what your standard of accommodation will be or you book through a company that will insist that there buildings are maintained at certain standard to come under there banner.

Austin Texas Apartment Prices Drop for Fall!

Summer is finally over and Apartment communities that maintained 90-100% occupancy levels throughout the summer have now been bombarded with new fall and winter time notices to vacate. Apartment communities pre-lease apartments based on their notices to vacate which are usually given 60-90 days out from the resident’s move date or lease end date.

Most long term tenants are being pushed out of their apartments with rental increases up to $200. Many of my clients recently call me discouraged stating that they have been a perfect resident for 5 years or more and don’t understand why their apartment community is so anxious to “stick it to them” when it comes time to renew their leases.

The first question I ask them is how much they are paying currently ie; a client we’ll call Leslie that I am helping move currently. Leslie told me that she is paying $625 for a 740sf apartment in a community she has lived at for 5 years and is only 7 years old, and they want to raise her rent to $725. The first thing I told her was that the community wanted to raise her rent $100 due to the fact that since she leased there 5 yrs ago the market had completely changed. Unfortunately the only people that view long term occupants at an apartment community as an asset are the occupants themselves.

The truth of the matter is that Leslie and many others around Austin whom of which have been exemplary tenants are being viewed as a loss to their apartment communities. With a shortage of available apartments in Austin the market has changed. For example 5 years ago in South Austin you could get a nice apartment at an A class property for between 6-$700. Now you cant even get near an A class property in South Austin for less than $900 and that would be for a 1 bedroom apartment. Availability pushes pricing. If a guy has 50 apartments available they lower prices and offer up a massive upfront concession ie; 1 month free 2 months free etc. But when a management company looks down and sees that they are 96% full which has been the case most of this summer and historically most summers then their rates rise to the market rates (the highest rates they can charge for a particular unit). Long term residents are being viewed as a loss and therefore pushed out.

The good news is that in the last two or three months there have been at least twenty new apartment communities open.  There are also at least 100 more on the horizon. This type of news and the historically slow fall and winter months are forcing apartment communities to drop their prices and drop them fast. There are at least twenty communities that I can think of right now that have dropped their prices $50-$75 in the last month from August pricing to compete with the new properties that have opened or are opening up in their vicinity.

For example the Wyndhaven apartments on Wells Branch. For years Wyndhaven was only one of two A property options in the Wells Branch area. Their smallest 1 bdrm apartment 630sf was going for $769 a month. Then comes the Verde Oak Park apartments that opened a month or two ago right next door. The day Verde Oak Park opened their doors Wyndhaven went to $679 on the same floor plan. It still didn’t help them though Verde Oak Park has a similar square footage for $710 Brand New Never Been Lived In! Then they were offering two months free upfront. Well if you average out the two months free over the lease term which was 13 months (aka a prorate) $1420 is the total concession or (special) divided by the minimum lease term which was 13 months that’s $1420 divided by 13 months equaling $109.23. The $109.23 is your average monthly concession. You then subtract the $109.23 from the monthly rental rate. $710 minus $109.23 equals $600.77 a month for 13 months. Plus these apartments contain granite countertops, washer and Dryer etc and are BRAND NEW and have NEVER BEEN LIVED in.

So, yes rental rates are dropping dramatically with the rise of new communities you just can’t be fooled by upfront numbers anymore. My advice is that you always contact a Real Estate professional procurement of leasing transactions for the consumer are always 100% FREE. And recommended. Yes rates are higher but if you look past the first picture of the rate being $710 when you’re price range is $650 and you end up at Wyndhaven which is over ten years old and a much lesser quality class A property at $679 then the only one to blame is yourself. With the newer communities trying to fill up their properties they are offering great upfront concessions that will bring the rates back down.

You should always contact an apartment locator before looking at apartments on your own. If that apartment locater doesn’t find you the best deal available and you are not happy enough to move in then they don’t get paid that is your insurance.