The lease for my current apartment expires at the end of July (thank goodness!), and since I’m all about doing things in advance, I decided I should go ahead and start looking for a new place.
My Current Situation
I kind of got screwed with my current living situation. Back when I signed my lease, I was living on campus and still going to school. I was told that my apartment on campus was being torn down to build a new law school. So, I needed a place close to campus so I could finish my degree. This place was the best choice, as they have a walking trail that leads directly to campus. I thought about it a bit and signed a 15 month lease.
A few weeks later, I decided that I was done with school. Great, now I was stuck an hour away from all of my friends for the next 15 months. No worries, since some of my friends were planning to come to school here the next semester. Of course, that never happened.
My current place is built for college students. Rent is super cheap, but you also have three other roommates. Each person has their own room / bathroom and you share the living room, kitchen, etc. It’s not a terrible situation, but I am definitely ready for my own place again.
Apartment Hunting
Keith came down Thursday and we headed back up to Southaven to hang out at his place then go see what we could find Friday. We ended up looking at four different complexes.
I had done my research online based on price, etc. and selected three complexes in the area to check out. The first one was the middle-priced and honestly, neither of us were too impressed with it. The office staff was nice but seemed very unorganized. The apartment we were shown had not been cleaned since the last tenant moved out (she explained this to us), so it was a bit dirty. They also didn’t have any 1 bedroom apartments on the bottom floor. One down, two to go.
The next place we checked was really two complexes - East and West. This was the most expensive of the three and looked really nice on the outside. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a one bedroom available to show me, but we did get some brochures.
The third place was the cheapest of all, and it certainly showed. I was not impressed with this place at all… and once again, they didn’t have anything to show me.
After the third place, we came up with a few more questions for the second place and stopped back by. The leasing office lady didn’t seem to be in her right mind and wasn’t tracking most of the questions we asked lol.
As we were leaving, I decided to check one last place just across the street. I had seen this place online but its higher price turned me off. But hey, might as well check it out anyway.
This turned out to be a really good idea. The property was really nice and just over a year old. We looked at a 2 bedroom apartment that had a similar layout as the 1 bedroom. As I mentioned, the price here is a bit more than I wanted to spend, but you get what you pay for: gated community, security cameras, a really nice pool area, a friendly staff, two courtesy officers that live on the property, etc. I also really liked the layout of the apartment and how the bar area in the kitchen was “on my level”.
I picked up an application and should be submitting it in the next few weeks. I was told that since it is so far in advance, there shouldn’t be any issue with securing a 1 bedroom unit on the bottom floor. Wish me luck!
