This is a guest post by Jon Andrews.
3 months in DC, 3 months apartment hunting, and Falls Church, VA wins the search. After locking in employment with Surefire Social in Herndon, VA, narrowing down my apartment search was a little easier. But with their relocation in May to Tysons Corner, it made it even easier. The budget however, did not.
Working 8 hours a day, not having a permanent place to live, and having to find a place to live was a hard task. But Tyson’s Glen apartments, located in Falls Church, VA, but relatively closer to Tysons, won the highest bid with just two metro stops away from the new office and 10 minutes away from downtown DC. The attractive monthly rate was an added bonus.
The process was not fun — at all. But then again, when is apartment hunting ever fun? I’ve consulted websites and mobile applications such as Zillow, Trulia, HotPads, and others. Where I found most of my prospects on HotPads, all it took was a simple Google search for “apartments in [location/city here]”. Google will actually find all apartments in the area and filter them by reviews and monthly rates.
I should have done all this from the beginning, but I’m very impatient and like to have things figured out ahead of time. I kept looking for apartments every day, knowing that I couldn’t move in right away due to other restraints. It turned what ended up taking 1 day into a 3-month headache.
If I had to make suggestions to people whom are apartment hunting, I would be sure to know these three things before starting:
Know exactly where you’re going to be working and living.
– This is going to eliminate quite a bit of geographical locations.
If there’s anybody else that you’re waiting on to move with, be sure THEY also know where they’re working.
– There’s no point in finding a place out of town when both of you work in the same city.
If both of you are working in two different places, find a mutual place in between.
Know your budget
– It’s a lot easier to sift through apartments when you have a relative budget in mind. For me, it was finding something less than $1700 a month (without utilities) and then going from there.
I’m sure these three tips will help others successfully relocate.
Editors note: If you’re starting your apartment search, consider starting with Urban Igloo.
