Apartment Hunting

The countdown is beginning! My move to SoCal is getting more and more real and getting closer and closer. It’s terrifyingly exciting! Unfortunately, one of the hardest things about moving, other than packing of things into a million boxes, is finding a place to live. I don’t have any family in SoCal so I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start looking. Luckily, I have enough friends from the area and they were able to turn me onto some great resources.

There are a few differences between looking for an apartment while in college and looking for one after graduation. While in college, I realized that the earlier you can nail down an apartment, the better. This is because most of the apartments around a college town have a set lease date. By this, I mean they all have similar move in dates that correlate with the school semesters. So usually there’s a June 1st move-in/move-out date because that works with all students. So because that’s already set in stone, most landlords can put their apartments up for rent as early as February or March! Therefore, it’s best to get an early head start when looking for college apartments.

When looking for an apartment after graduation, however, I wouldn’t look further than a month in advance, the reason being that most apartments, while looking for one-year lease tenants, usually will get snatched up pretty quickly. The thing I’ve realized about non-college town apartments is that the turnover rate is pretty quick, especially in hot areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City etc. Therefore, this is one time where procrastination will work in your favor. Yesterday, I tried to start making appointments to see apartments on this coming Saturday and most of the places I reached out to were surprised I was calling so early! Some even suggested I call back on Friday.

I can’t wait to be down in the LA area this weekend! I’ve scouted out some pretty cool places that I would love to live in. I’ll give you all an update as soon as I get back!

A little Game of Thrones meme for y'all!