Mov­ing Up: Let’s Talk De­tails

Ok, it’s get­ting se­ri­ous now. Hunt­ing for the apart­ment was merely just the be­gin­ning of the jour­ney that was about to un­fold. Once you find the “apart­ment of your dreams,” it is all fun and games to win­dow shop for apart­ments, cre­ate end­less Pin­ter­est boards of your “per­fect kitchen,” and make an ex­tremely ex­pen­sive Ama­zon cart full of solely records of ac­tual func­tional sup­plies. Be­cause who nee? But be­fore you go down that rab­bit hole, did you re­ally think of every­thing? Is this truly the apart­ment of your dreams? Or were you just blind­sided by the shiny new model apart­ment that they show off to every­one in every tour to get you to rent there. For­tu­nately for you, Mov­ing Up is here to fill you in on the things you might have missed!  

There are spe­cific de­tails that are nec­es­sary to even be able to rent an apart­ment. Credit Score. Hope­fully, since you are in col­lege, this term is­n’t news to you. But just to catch any­one up:  

credit score (noun); a nu­mer­i­cal rat­ing rep­re­sent­ing the per­ceived abil­ity of a per­son or or­ga­ni­za­tion to ful­fill their fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments based on an analy­sis of their credit his­tory and cur­rent fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances. 

This is im­por­tant so the apart­ment com­plex can trust you to make your pay­ments. Un­for­tu­nately for most col­lege stu­dents they have lit­tle to no credit built up. So, what are you sup­posed to do? Can you even rent an apart­ment? Was all that work for noth­ing? Why did­n’t I tell you ear­lier you were wast­ing your time? Don’t worry! Rent­ing an apart­ment is­n’t out of the pic­ture. There are cer­tain things you can do to ob­tain an apart­ment, like still:  

• Have a cosigner  

• Find a room­mate with good credit  

• Build your credit  

To make the right de­ci­sion, it is im­por­tant to re­search each op­tion to de­cide which is best. Find­ing a cosigner is ben­e­fi­cial if your par­ent or trusted in­di­vid­ual is will­ing to help. Per­son­ally, it is what worked out for me; how­ever, this may not be avail­able to every­one. An­other op­tion is to con­sider find­ing a room­mate who al­ready has good credit, re­plac­ing the cosigner. Fi­nally, you have the op­tion to work on build­ing your own credit score be­fore ap­ply­ing to rent an apart­ment. How­ever, ap­ply­ing for an apart­ment will take time be­fore us­ing that in­for­ma­tion. Un­for­tu­nately, get­ting ac­cepted to rent an apart­ment is al­most im­pos­si­ble with­out this in­for­ma­tion.

Af­ter en­sur­ing you can get ap­proved for the apart­ment, an­other area to in­ves­ti­gate is the safety of the ac­tual apart­ment com­plex. Some com­plexes will say/​do any­thing to sell renters on their com­plexes, so it is vi­tal to do re­search of your own. You can con­ve­niently look at crimes around the apart­ment com­plex area. click here . You can also con­tact the lo­cal po­lice de­part­ment and talk to an em­ployee to find deeper in­for­ma­tion about the area you are look­ing into. How­ever, no mat­ter how much re­search is done, break-ins can hap­pen any­time, but that does­n’t mean you must be un­pre­pared and take the hit with no warn­ing. No mat­ter where you rent from, it is im­por­tant to make safety your num­ber one pri­or­ity. Some things that can be added to en­hance your safety are: 

• Ring Doorbell 

• Door security bar/door jam  

• Sim­ple bar/​piece of wood for slid­ing doors 

• Fire extinguisher 

• First aid kits 

• Flashlight 

• Pepper spray 

• Surge protectors  

• Safe/ document bag 

• Renters Insurance 

Main­tain­ing your safety is far from more im­por­tant than the most im­por­tant thing when it comes to look­ing for apart­ments. Gage Put­man, a new apart­ment renter, said, “I re­cently got a ring door­bell for my apart­ment, and it has made me feel ten times safer in my home. My com­plex is in a nice area, but you can never be too care­ful.” All the ex­tra work and re­search is worth en­sur­ing you live com­fort­ably and feel at home. Even if you never face break-ins or fires, less ex­treme in­ci­dents can hap­pen within your com­mu­nity. Such as, young teens may run around the com­plex door­bell ditch­ing every­one, and dec­o­ra­tions may be stolen, or even pack­ages. Tessa Clark, a sea­soned renter, said, “I once put the cutest pump­kin out­side my door for fall, and then one day, poof, it was gone. Later, I found it smashed in the grass, and hon­estly, that was a sad day.” Luck­ily for Tessa, it was just her pump­kin and not any­thing im­por­tant (no of­fense, I’m sure it was cute). Do your­self a fa­vor and be pre­pared rather than sorry. 

YAY ADULT­ING! Who knew one day you would have to worry about de­tails like these? Lucky for you, Mov­ing Up is here to help you along the way! Be­com­ing an adult is ex­cit­ing but also opens your world up to all the de­tails hid­den be­hind the shiny, per­fect pic­ture. Like hav­ing a good credit score; who was go­ing to tell you about that? Or re­al­iz­ing that not all places may be as safe as they seem. Ex­cept at this point in your life, I am sure you have ex­pe­ri­enced this as­pect al­ready. This jour­ney is prepar­ing you for the fu­ture, life af­ter col­lege. On the bright side, af­ter dig­ging deep into the hid­den de­tails, you are one step closer to bring­ing to life your Pin­ter­est boards and pur­chas­ing that Ama­zon card! (ex­cept do not spend all your money on decor). 

Want­ing to know more? Check back to Mov­ing Up for more need-to-know con­tent about life off cam­pus and to learn about the next step and fol­low our In­sta­gram @movin­gup_mu!