I was talking to a co-employee about our apartments. I heard from him that you can get a decent apartment for just a little bit more than I was paying, which was $330. Keep in mind, the cost of living in Lincoln, Nebraska is a lot cheaper than places like New York City. That put the thought of moving into my head. The place I was living in was a small studio apartment, about 393 square feet.It was built in the late 1800’s. I had been living there for almost 10 years and realized I was getting very complacent in my life. The place was small and cramp with all the things I had been accumulating since I had been living there. I needed to make a change! I loved the location of it, but that was it.
Location of the apartments
I made my mind up that I was moving. I looked through apartment classified ads and craigslist daily. I wanted a place that was at the most 12 blocks (preferably 9) from where I work. It also had to be at th most 2 blocks north of it because I lived 9 blocks north and wanted a change of scenery. I had a bunch of places written down. The irony of all this work was that the place I would eventually get, I saw while biking passed it. My max budget at first was $360, it crept up to $375, $400, $420, $450 then back down to $420. I wanted either a 1 or 2 bedroom that would fit into my price range. I did this for more than a month.
My bike when it was brand new!
On August 5th I rode my bike around the area that I wanted to rent from. Since they don’t have prices on the for rent signs, I had to get a good look of all the places. If I liked it, I would write the phone number and address down. I did a grid pattern. My workplace was on 17th st, so I looked west to east from 10th st to 27th st and north to south from 2 blocks north to 6 blocks south to a major street called South St. I covered most of that area on that day and had to stop because it was getting too dark to see any good details of the “For Rent” places.
I finished looking the next day. I wrote down about 45 different places including the ones from craiglist and classifieds. I also biked to the places that I had written down before I did the grid system and got a good look at them. I eliminated a couple places because I didn’t like the look of them.
Later that afternoon, I made calls to all the places that was on the same street or south of where I worked. I asked them the cost of rent, deposit, the floor the available apartment was in, square feet if they knew and most importantly, the earliest move in date. It had to be a few days before September 1st, I wanted to move out of that place before the 10th anniversary (I had been living there since September 1999). I eventually made 8 different appointments to get a tour of the places I was interested in. My current landlord had a 2 bedroom that was around that area and asked if I was interested in looking. Another appointment, now that makes 9.
Location of the apartments (satellite view)
I had 5 appointments to tour available places on Friday, August 7th. The first one was from my current landlord. It was a duplex that was converted from a house, something I didn’t want. It had a decent layout, but I want an actual apartment.
The 2nd one I toured I liked quite a bit. It was being remodeled and wasn’t in the best conditioned but I loved the layout of it. It had a very unconventional design, I gave it a 9 out of 10. The guy that gave me the tour was named Jim (he’ll re-appear later). He does maintenance for this place and is buddies with the owner.
The 3rd place had a weird layout with a small bedroom with no closets, which turned me off, but it did have an incredible kitchen. It was big, clean, white and beautiful. The big thing about this place was that it was a duplex converted from a house. Phet no like.
The 4th place had a very boring and conventional design. It was a big apartment building so it had a lot of tenants, which I didn’t like. The lady that gave me the tour actually owned the place and I had called her twice to ask about her apartments that was available.
The 5th place was my last appointment of the day. This place caught my eyes because it was built from very red bricks and it had a nice courtyard between buildings. When I walked into the place, it caught my eyes right away. It had a very unconventional and unique design. When you first walk through the door, there’s 3 places to go, straight to the bathroom, right to the living room and kitchen, and left to the bedroom. The living room was partially divided from the kitchen by a tetris looking shelf, which looks very cool. The kitchen is huge, it also has exotic looking green tile floors (along with the bathroom). I loved the place! I gave it my rating of 10 out of 10!
From the explanation of 5th place, you can tell that was my favorite. So lets get other places I looked at out of the way.
6th place, has game room with pool and tennis in the basement, otherwise lame design. Only bathroom was in the bedroom. Yes, the bathroom.
7th place, Jim from the 2nd place gave me a tour for this one also (He is the maintenance man for the company, RIS) It had a very conventional design, it was old, had a terrible old bathroom, but it was huge!
8th place, landlord never showed up to give me a tour. I knocked on the door of the person living across from the place that was available and she let me use her phone to call the landlord. They never picked up, but I got a good idea of how the apartment would look like. I didn’t like it, or the landlord.
I saw the 9th place on Monday, August 10t at 5pm. It was an ugly duplex converted from an even uglier house. The place was dirty and filthy. The apartment wasn’t as bad but, I told the lady that gave me the tour that the place was not in my top 3 of all the places I have seen. And I was being nice.
After that, I raced home and call the landlord of the 5th place to let them know I would be applying to rent there. I had actually filled in the application form the night before, but I wanted to honor the last appointment, because I liked the place so much. There was a $10 application fee, which was a bummer. I wrote my bike to her place and handed in my application along with the money. She said the earliest she can let me know if I was approved was the next day at noon.
Woohoo!
Sure, enough she gave me a call the next day at noon and let me know the good news. I WAS APPROVED! I was so happy that I had to tell someone. I decided to email my brother, Jimmie. As I was about to send the email, I got a call from him. I let him know the good news and still sent the email.
There it is, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. That was long! Whew! I love my new place. It has some minor kinks that needs to be worked out, but it’s not going to bug me too much.
Here I am, chilling in my new place and updating my blog.
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