 Personal Finance Power Point Presentation. Selecting an apartment overview. Get ready to get financially fit by practicing personal finance. Most of this information can be found at Investopedia. Six tips when renting an apartment by Raina Gobble updated June 10th, 2021. So you could go there for more references and resources and continue your research at that point. In prior presentations, we've been thinking about the thought process for larger purchase items, those that will have an impact for multiple periods into the future. We then talked about the home and whether or not we should rent or we should purchase the home. And now we're focusing more on the rental side of things in future presentations. We'll think more about the purchasing side of things. So note when we're thinking about the spectrum on our financial decisions in terms of is this a short-term decision or long-term decision, the renting is kind of more in the middle. When we're looking at those short-term decisions, those that we make every day, then we're typically gonna try to hone down our habits. We're gonna train our gut so we can trust our gut so that we can make more automatic decisions that are typically going to be good decisions. Long-term decisions, those that are gonna have higher dollar amounts impact multiple periods into the future. Then we wanna make a more formal decision-making process using the adage of measure twice and cut once. We're kind of in the middle here because we got the renting, which is probably gonna lock us into at least a month, most likely a year. So we probably are leaning more towards a more formal decision-making process, even though it's not multiple years because it's gonna be a significant amount of time. We can't basically tinker or test on a day-to-day kind of basis with the decision-making process. And of course, moving is not an easy thing to do. So we wanna consider how long we're gonna be in the rental property and kind of what our idea will be of our longer-term plans with regards to the renting or the place we're going to be staying. So number one, seek web help in picking features. So we wanna be looking online, great resources online to help us out with our decision-making process that we're not there in prior years. If you don't know what features you're, are available in your area, try exploring websites of online apartment locator tools. So there's a lot of locator tools. It used to be that what we had to do was like look in the phone book for apartments that are around us in a particular area, then call them and to determine if they have anything available that we need, usually by the size of the apartment, one bedroom, two bedroom, and then we can kind of ask for the amenities and then we gotta go over there and look at it to get some idea of what is actually there. Clearly these days, you can search online for things such as the availability of studios or one bedrooms or two bedrooms, and then, and so on. And then you can also search by the amenities. You can also get at least some pictures to see those actual amenities that are there. You get reviews so that you can't very easily have the apartment place just straight out lie to you. Although I don't think any of this stuff really means that you wouldn't want to go look at the place. I'd still want to look at the place before moving into the place, but you can get a good preliminary search much more easily these days than in the past, which is great. So you can search for apartments based simply on whether you want to buy one or two bedroom apartment or buy other features, such as like a pool or something like that. It's a great way to find out both what your pad will cost and what neighborhood have the features you want. So clearly if you look from neighborhood to neighborhood, then it's likely that the cost will be somewhat similar from a certain location to location based on the size of the place you're looking at. So number two, avoid choosing a home based on the perceived value. You can get a great deal on an apartment with a vaulted ceilings and an island kitchen, but the neighborhood may not be what you're looking for. So clearly if you're basing just on kind of like one factor and just how the place looks and not taken into consideration the other factors, you want to make sure you have a weighted out average of the different factors so that you get the best purchase you can. Obviously the weight of the different factors will depend on your personal taste. So or it's missing other things that topped your list of desired features. So clearly some of those desired features are going to be a matter of taste. And once again, you kind of like to measure those on a side-by-side comparison. It would be nice if you can come up with some kind of some kind of scale where you can actually calculate out which are the most important things versus the least important things so that you can get a realistic comparison between them. So don't make the mistake of renting an apartment because it seems like a good deal according to someone else's needs, but not a good deal based on your needs. So whenever we get advice from someone else, clearly when you get, it seems obvious, but when we get advice from someone else, that advice is what they're looking for. So it's their advice on what their preferences are and most likely it's a reflection of the decisions they've made because all of us, when we make decisions, we then rationalize our decisions. So I mean, if you talk to someone who purchases a home instead of renting a home, more likely than not, they're gonna tell you the virtues of purchasing a home rather than renting a home because that's what they did and they're gonna rationalize the rightness of their decision. If you talk to someone that's renting a home versus purchasing a home, that's probably what they're gonna do and most decisions are like that. That doesn't mean that other people's opinions are not something you should take into consideration, but you gotta view them from the perspective that clearly they're gonna advocate the decisions that they have actually made most of the time and you wanna take that into consideration from your perspective, your perspective might be different and so you gotta just put that into the calculation here. Number three, call a broker in your area, look online or in physical phone book for numbers for apartments in your area so you can obviously pull out the trustee phone book and look up the apartments. Call at least two and ask about which rental communities and neighborhoods have the most features that you want within your price range. So if you talk to a professional that's in the rental area or a rental apartment, they're gonna know who their competition is. They of course will be biased to some degree on their particular place, but they're gonna have a good idea of what's around that place and what are the prices from here to there, especially if you're talking to someone that owns the rental property or rental management company. So ask about specials, you may be able to find an apartment that would normally go for 1000 a month for 800 per month because the broker will get a commission. If you choose a property, they recommend make sure the locator calls ahead to see if the two or three properties you like have the best units available. So if you do have a broker that's gonna help you with the purchase of an apartment, then note obviously the broker is gonna get paid for that possibly making a commission. That's going to influence their decision-making process or their behavior, as long as you understand that, then they could of course have more knowledge in it to help you out with it. But them working as an agent, their interests are slightly different than yours. Their interests are driven by the payment clearly. Number four, best rental listing sites for 2022, according to Investopedia, best renting listing sites. So these are some sites that you can look on. These are some of the big ones that you can do some side-by-side comparisons. They keep on adding more and more tools to help with your searching process and one is gonna be for example, the Zillow rental manager. So if you look at Zillow, then they have more tools that have the neighborhood around there. They might have the schools that are around there and they have different rankings for how close other stuff is and so on. So they're adding more and more tools on some of these rental sites that are quite useful. So Zillow is one of the big ones for the overall. Then we got AVL, best for screening perspective tenants and then we've got the appartments.com, best for attracting qualified applicants and then we got the rentometer, best for cost comparable. So you can take a look at those tools online as you go through the process. Number four, always call a community before visiting. Before you visit a property, call before visiting to get a quote on prices. So if you're gonna go visit somewhere, if you're gonna take the time to drive out there, it'd be best generally to let them know you're going out there so you could talk to someone, have them guide you around and so on. And so forth, noting that of course, when you're there, you're gonna kind of be a salesperson to some degree as you're there. So you might not want to commit to make it a decision at that point in time, but it would be good to have someone to talk to as you're checking out the place. So once you are on the property, the leasing agent may hope to allow you with features, but on the phone, it's all about the numbers. Compare the figures you receive from your locator with the number you gather from online and local apartment locator services. So clearly if you get any quotes from the person at the property, you wanna compare those to what you are finding on your online resources. Number five, tour properties in person. While virtual tours can be found on most apartment complexes websites, there's no substitute for visiting a community in person. So it's great to get that preliminary kind of look online and they do have a lot of images online now of different facilities. So you get a pretty good feel, but that's not the same thing as actually going to the place. And some of the things in the actual place, if you go there, you get a better idea of how close the apartments are, for example. I mean, if you look on the online tools, you're gonna get an idea. You could see the pool, you could see the online amenities they have. You could see the general layout of the structure and get a feel for it, but you can't really see quite really how big the pool is, for example, isn't always there, or what the amenities actually look like inside, how big, if there's a gym, what's the actual size of the gym? Is there just like one machine in the middle there? Do you have a full-size gym? What are you really talking about with the gym? And if you're going into the actual apartments themselves, it's nice to know how close are the apartments? You know, what's the amount of noise filter that's going through the apartments? Are they structured in such a way for optimal privacy and whatnot, even though you got kind of close together apartments? So those things are a lot easier to see in person and can have a significant impact. Websites will provide an idea of what the community and interior look like and should be used as an initial screen. Walking around your potential new neighborhood and apartment will give you a better feel for the location. Also, don't limit the search to one property. Visit at least two, so you have a comparison. So if you go to one property and you're like, yeah, that's pretty good, but if you have nothing else to compare it to, then if you have two properties, you're probably gonna say this one is, I like this one for whatever reason, more than the other one. And so you wanna have a benchmark of something to compare to. So six, re-evaluate your feature list during the very first step of the process of finding a fabulous new place to live, one that's also easy on your wallet. You developed a list of what features that are important to you in and around your new home. You should have also decided what you are willing to pay for them now that you have at least a couple of different properties to choose, see if you still hold the same values. When you actually go through and look through the places, your values could actually change a bit. You might be wild by a couple of things like it is nice to have a gym right there. That is, so you might then, but then before making the decision, you probably wanna go and say, okay, let me re-evaluate my list here and prioritize it again, possibly, and try to determine which is best based on a relevant comparison. So adjust your list accordingly, so as to which features is worth being before doing your final comparison of cost versus home value. The bottom line, once you know what you want and what it will cost, sit down and think about your choices in the following two ways. Number one, look at your actual budget, consider whether one apartment would leave you with more money left over. Number two, evaluate an apartment's worth based on the sum of values you have assigned to the features from your list. So one, affordability clearly, and then number two, you wanna think about these features and try to value those features and if you could assign a dollar value to them so you can kinda make a comparison on majorable terms, then that would be good. How much is the gym in there worth to you, right? Is it, does it replace the gym fee that you're paying or something like that? Could you go, how much is the pool worth? So make sure the actual rent you pay is within reason for what you can afford. Knowing you have an actual value for what's important to you will enable you to make a decision on where you live based on your own needs instead of a community advertisement. So you obviously don't wanna make your decision just simply on the gut in this case, just on the advertisement because your gut hasn't been trained enough. You train your gut so you can trust your gut and on this decision you're not renting every day so your gut's not ready for that kind of thing. You gotta think about it more. Factors, location, building exterior, building interior, financial aspects, layout of facilities. These are just some general categories that you wanna basically keep in mind when you're looking through the apartment, obviously location, the building factors, the building interior, the financial aspects, and layout and facilities. So the location, is it close to schools, church, a synagogue, if those are important to you, then of course you wanna locate those. Those online tools often have rankings and so on of schools and churches and stuff like that. So those online tools are great. Shopping, what kind of shopping area? Do you have a car? How far can you go? Do you wanna walk to the shopping places and whatnot? Oftentimes those online tools have tools like that to help you out, to determine how much you need a car and what's around you, what's walkable. Public transportation, do you need to get on buses and trains, how close are those items to you? Again, many of those online tools are helpful to determine how close some of those other facilities are. Recreation, does it have the recreational needs that you need? Is it close to your gym if you want the gym or other kind of whatever your recreation is? Building exterior, condition of the building and the ground. So clearly that's gonna be one of the things that's gonna be apparent to you when you're comparing and contrasting how well built are the buildings and you might wanna consider in an apartment, how sound transparent, how well are they built for sound since you're close by to people and so on. Parking facilities and recreation. So do you have the needed parking that you need in that place, the recreational facilities? Building interior exits and security. So clearly, hopefully you're feeling safe in the event that there's an emergency that you can get out of there or something. You got the exits and security. If you need the security, it depends on the area. Are you feeling safe in the area? Hallway maintenance are the common areas, well-kept condition of the elevators. So if you have the elevators, you don't wanna be in an elevator that you think you're gonna die in every time you're going home. That could be stressful. So if you have to have an elevator, I don't like elevators personally. I don't like working in big office buildings because those elevators are horrible and then they lock the stairs on you. So you can't even use the stairs if you want to. Like I don't mind going up five, no, you gotta go in whatever. Any case, make sure the elevator's not a death trap. Exits to mailboxes, so you wanna make sure you got that. Financial aspects, the rent, length of lease, obviously it's gonna be important. The security deposit, and so that could differ from place to place. Utilities and other costs. So who's paying for the utilities? Are you doing it? Or what utilities are you responsible for? That could differ from place to place. Layout of the facilities, condition and the size, closets, carpeting and appliances. So what is the, what kind of stuff do they have inside? How important is it for you to have the nicer amenity or things that inside like the carpeting, the appliances and the sink type and whatnot. Type of heat and air conditioning, which can be crucial depending on where you are at. Plumbing of water pressure, plumbing and water pressure, storage areas, the room size, doors, locks and windows. So all, you know, kind of a list of things you might wanna just have in mind as you're going through your comparisons.