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Sep. 2nd, 2006 06:03 pmWell, I have found an apartment. Fate and the fortuitous presence of a PT Cruiser are to blame.
An imaginatively named company called Chicago Apartment Finders happens to own a maroon PT Cruiser tastefully plastered with ads for their website. I saw it yesterday and, at the end of my rope, logged on and found an office. This morning I hied me to the nearest one as soon as it opened. And good thing I did, too, they managed to slide me in even though I had no appointment. The two women who came in directly after me were not so lucky.
I was assigned to a very nice woman who took down my preferences, spent about half an hour on the computer, and came up with five apartments that fit my criteria: close to the El, within my budget, and in reasonable safe neighborhoods. We discarded two that didn't include heat in the rent and ended up discarding a third when she called and found it had been rented an hour earlier. Seriously, I had no idea the Chicago housing market was so cutthroat, but apparently everything's gone condo, so there's an apartment shortage. No shit, really?
Anyway, the first one I looked at was in a great neighborhood, but the apartment itself was tiny and rather shoddy. The third (after the abortive attempt to look at the one that was rented out from under us) was in a good neighborhood, two blocks from the Bryn Mawr El stop, and a one-bedroom with heat included. $600 is a little more than I would want to pay, ideally, but for Chicago it's really excellent and I don't think I'd find a better combination of safe-neighborhood and cheap-flat. I've seen studios going for $800.
So, I rented it. I move in October first, pending credit approval. My parents had to co-sign on the lease, but that's just a formality because I'm unemployed at present.
I'm a little "shit, what did I just do?" about the whole thing, but that'll wear off. I just wish I'd had the presence of mind to take pictures. As it is, I barely had the presence of mind to write the dollar amount in the proper place on the deposit check....
An imaginatively named company called Chicago Apartment Finders happens to own a maroon PT Cruiser tastefully plastered with ads for their website. I saw it yesterday and, at the end of my rope, logged on and found an office. This morning I hied me to the nearest one as soon as it opened. And good thing I did, too, they managed to slide me in even though I had no appointment. The two women who came in directly after me were not so lucky.
I was assigned to a very nice woman who took down my preferences, spent about half an hour on the computer, and came up with five apartments that fit my criteria: close to the El, within my budget, and in reasonable safe neighborhoods. We discarded two that didn't include heat in the rent and ended up discarding a third when she called and found it had been rented an hour earlier. Seriously, I had no idea the Chicago housing market was so cutthroat, but apparently everything's gone condo, so there's an apartment shortage. No shit, really?
Anyway, the first one I looked at was in a great neighborhood, but the apartment itself was tiny and rather shoddy. The third (after the abortive attempt to look at the one that was rented out from under us) was in a good neighborhood, two blocks from the Bryn Mawr El stop, and a one-bedroom with heat included. $600 is a little more than I would want to pay, ideally, but for Chicago it's really excellent and I don't think I'd find a better combination of safe-neighborhood and cheap-flat. I've seen studios going for $800.
So, I rented it. I move in October first, pending credit approval. My parents had to co-sign on the lease, but that's just a formality because I'm unemployed at present.
I'm a little "shit, what did I just do?" about the whole thing, but that'll wear off. I just wish I'd had the presence of mind to take pictures. As it is, I barely had the presence of mind to write the dollar amount in the proper place on the deposit check....
