By: Courtney Luster and Connor Davis
With the end of spring quarter quickly approaching, many students are making the jump from living in dorms to moving off-campus, or finding a new place to live for the summer and upcoming year. The process of househunting can become a little overwhelming, especially because rent prices around DU are often sky-high and still increasing. Here are a few tips and tricks to help guide you in your search.
Start looking now, but be prepared to wait until the last second. Some places you can pre-lease up to three months in advance, but many others don’t know their availability until a month out. Keep your eye out to know what’s available, but don’t panic if you don’t find anything right away.
Don’t rent the very first place you like. Get a feel for what’s available in your price range and look at three to five places before you make a decision. Use the strategy of thinking on it over the weekend. If by Monday you’ve forgotten about it, you probably didn’t love it. If you’re thinking about it all weekend, it might be meant to be.
That being said, if you like something, jump on it. The housing market in Denver is crazy right now; according to an article in 5280, “Last summer, the inventory of homes for sale in the Denver area hit an all-time low—about 6,400 homes on the market in June 2013 (equilibrium is usually something closer to 17,000). The imbalance caused, at times, a frantic market that significantly favored sellers. Owners would list their homes and immediately receive multiple cash offers higher than the asking price. Buyers tried anything to gain an edge.”
That is to say, if something meets all the criteria on your list and doesn’t break the bank, make it happen—or someone else looking at that house will.
Decide what is a deal-breaker for you and what isn’t. Some people don’t mind living farther from campus and some people need to be right across the street. Some enjoy riding bikes to campus and being far enough away not to be surrounded by other students all the time. Other people need to be close because of various commitments.
Parking is a huge factor for people who have cars. Parking near DU is limited at best and finding out the parking situation for an apartment or house is essential. If you have to park on the street, you’ll need to deal with the first-come first-serve aspect of it and know that you need to get a permit. If you can snag a place with free parking, that’s best. A lot of places charge you monthly for a parking space. But if it’s on-street, try to find somewhere that doesn’t have one or two hour limits. You can get a permit, but when your friends and family come over, you don’t want them moving their cars all the time to avoid tickets.
Know what is included in rent. An $800 per month rent for a one-bedroom might seem ideal, but does that include utilities? Gas, electric, cable, Wifi, water and trash can push that price tag up at least $1000. Wifi is something that a lot of realtors won’t mention unless you ask. Apartments generally have most utilities included, but often houses do not. For this reason, apartments are almost always a cheaper and safer bet.
Know what you’re getting into when you get an apartment in one of the popular complexes like Asbury Green, Vista or Observatory Park. They are catered completely to DU students and have some great perks like being very close to campus, having gyms and sometimes giving away free food and prizes. They also come with the factor of living in a pseudo-dorm style apartment complex, complete with study rooms. While these are all positives, the apartments and duplexes on the other side of campus by the Mass Communications building and Olin are cheaper and have more green space around them, instead of being surrounded by Evans on one side and University on the other.
When signing a lease, don’t lie about anything. If you’re planning on being loud and throwing parties, say so. If you don’t tell your landlord now, your neighbors will find out eventually and then you will have to deal with not only the landlord and your angry neighbors, but probably the police as well. This goes for things like pets, too. If the lease you’re signing doesn’t allow them and you have one (or multiple), don’t sign it.
Know the leasing companies that work near campus and get on their email lists. Cornerstone, Pinnacle and FourStar are three of the major companies with many complexes in the DU area. They are easy to contact and get set up on an email list so that you are updated when homes become available. Just walking or driving around and looking at places with “For Rent” signs is really helpful, as well. Even if you find a building without a “For Rent” sign that you like, it’s always worth looking it up online and calling the landlord to see if there will be any openings in the near future.
Other sites such as Walkscore, Zillow and Trulia are great tools. Each website allows you to enter your search criteria such as location, number of bedrooms and rent price range and they will search for you. All three also have an email function where they will send you lists of what is available in your search criteria.
Finally, don’t be intimidated by the process and options. Denver is an up-and-coming place to live right now; that is why so many people want to move here. There are particularly a lot of great positive aspects to living near the DU area and lots of great options for a place to make your new home. While the process can be overwhelming sometimes, a new place to live is fun and exciting, and, when you find the perfect place, you will know.
