The Great Apartment Hunt

This weekend was quite productive, and a DARN good time too :) It was so crazy to walk into these places and seriously talk about renting our first home together! It still didn't "hit" me, I don't think, that we would be living there together, just the two of us. I found myself imagining visiting the apartments we were looking at, not living in them - like we were looking for someone else or something. Very strange!

We went to four places. We had originally picked out 7 in the area that we could afford, and that had washers/dryers in each unit (a high priority for us, as I think I've mentioned previously). I've searched many sites, and these were really the only 7 that we could afford that were in the area we want to live in. Three of them got weeded out because of price (not as advertised!) or other reasons (one turned out to be "low-income housing" that you had to qualify for - as in, your income has to be BELOW a certain level - and while I don't mean to generalize about lower-income people, we're thinking maybe that's not the greatest environment for our first place together). So anyway, of the four that we visited, it turned out that two of them didn't have washers and dryers in EVERY unit (just the ones we can't afford). So that was disappointing. We already knew this going in, because Ben called around and got the info, but we wanted to at least give them a chance and look around. We could get an apartment right next to the laundry room at both places, but we'd still be competing with people for the machines, not to mention spending at least $3 a load and having to pay to dry our clothes multiple times (you know how those dryers can be)... we just really don't want to feel like we're still in college. And with Ben's laundry habits (realizing at midnight that he has no clean boxers for work the next day), I think it'll be worth it to have our own! Anyway, those two places were both quite affordable. We could have a 2BR apartment at either place, relatively comfortably. The first place we visited - Canterbury - even had apartments opening up around the time we'd be ready to move (so we wouldn't have to pay to hold anything til then). And the apartments themselves seemed roomy enough - comparable to others that I've seen visiting friends or whatever. The second no-washer-dryer place (Eagles Walk) was also nice, and had been renovated more recently, but the layouts just didn't make sense. The 1BR had a decent-sized bedroom, OK closet space and a decent-sized living room, while the 2BR had a HUGE living room but tiny bedrooms and NO closet space. And those 2BR's were SUPER affordable, but I couldn't get over the tiny bedroom and lack of closet space, PLUS not having our own washer/dryer. Nice neighborhood too - very quiet.

So on to the more exciting stuff - the two that we DID like were, of course, more expensive. We visited The Crossings at White Marsh first, literally across the street from White Marsh Mall and The Avenue - very convenient and in the middle of things. The apartments were nice, but a little on the small side. And the kitchens and bathrooms weren't super old, but hadn't been renovated recently. OH, but wait, they're running a special where you can upgrade both the kitchen AND bath before moving in - if you want to spend an extra $150 a month for the entire duration of your lease! Nice. Just their way of getting new tenents to pay for the renovations they'd have to do eventually anyway. That was a little annoying to me, and they were expensive enough as it was that there was no way we could afford the upgrades. They were running a great special on 1BR's - if we could move in, like, yesterday. And we really would like the extra space of a second bedroom, especially if the 1BR is a small 1BR. I know I'm going to need study space, unless I want to study in front of the TV in the living room, or on my bed in the bedroom (either option is VERY BAD news). And it'll give us space for friends to stay over, and a bedroom for snakey-poo (who I really don't want sleeping with me in my bedroom, nor do I want to subject my dinner guests to him, sitting out there in the living room peering at them while they eat or play Wii or whatever it is we're doing). People who stay overnight will just have to deal with him though. That's gonna be his bedroom. ANYWAY, moving on...

The place we LOVED is called Ridge View. It's about 3 miles from White Marsh Mall, so it's a quieter area but it's still convenient to everything (and by everything, I mean Ikea). The zip code is actually Rosedale (apparently "white marsh" is actually north of 43 and east of 95 - not quite what you imagine it is), which is fine, although Rosedale also extends inside the beltway and I'm sure that it becomes a less-than-desirable area as you head south. But as for where we are, it's great. It's a little close to the straight-up Essex crowd than I'd like to be, ideally, but what are you gonna do. There's probably one of those historical site plaques within 5 miles commemorating the birth of the phrase "wur goin downee oshin, hon". Yeah. As long as I have my buffer zone of a few miles, I'll be alright :) We'll probably do most of our shopping and stuff up closer to the mall anyway, in the Perry Hall and White Marsh areas. I don't want to make it seem like a bad area - it really isn't - I've just seen the map and I know how close it is to Essex. And I have a thing about Essex. And it's only a mile or so outside the beltway, so it isn't far from the city. But visiting yesterday, you definitely wouldn't know it. So anyway, this place had everything we wanted. Big old bedroom with big old walk-in closet, very nice-sized living room, BEAUTIFUL kitchen with dark granite counter tops, tall wood cabinets and new black appliances, washer & dryer, kitchen and bath are both newly renovated... just perfect. And the second bedroom in the 2BR isn't big, but it's perfect for a desk and a futon and a reptile, and could certainly serve as a nursery one day ;) One day in the very distant future... hopefully we'll have moved up in the world by then, but you never know what could happen so the second bedroom will be a nice insurance policy for that scenario as well! Here are some pictures of the model. I forgot to take my own photos, so these are the ones that are posted online...

The Bedroom - this actually doesn't do much justice to the size of it because whoever is taking the photo is standing a few feet into the room, and there's a few more feet past the end of the bed that you can't see before you hit the wall.
Looking from the living room into the dining area. There's more space to the left of the table behind that wall (goes all the way back to the wall that the front door is on). The kitchen is through the little opening next to that fake tree.
Looking back at the living room. It looks like they distorted the photo a bit to give it more depth, but it makes it look really small in the foreground. And again, the person taking the photo is standing several feet into the room. But anyway, it's a decent size.
Ahhh, my beautiful kitchen. I just love it. That's the fridge in the back right corner, and they put a tall cafe table along the wall on the left - I'd probably put a kitchen cart there for a little more surface space, since it's quite wide and there's nothing along that wall.
The bathroom. Nothing special, same counter tops and cabinets as in the kitchen, just a normal-sized bathroom. The space between the sink and the toilet is actually pretty wide, so I think I'll get a little cart to put there to add some surface space too.

So isn't it cute? Good, I'm glad you like it, because Ben JUST texted me and told me we're in!!! AAAAAAAH! This is CRAZY! We were having issues with the pricing, which I haven't gotten into yet, so I'll give you that story now. The 2BR's at the places without washers and dryers were 842 and 920 respectively - both within our price range (our absolute MAX is $995 a month), but we were having a hard time getting over the washer/dryer thing. The 1BRs at the place with washers and dryers were $750 and $787 - VERY affordable, but only had 1 bedroom. The 2BR's with washers and dryers were $994 and $999. Yikes. REALLY pushing it. We've been going back and forth about it ever since we left the last place yesterday, trying to decide what was more important, whether or not we could swing it maxing ourselves out like that, when and if we'd have more money coming in... so I told Ben to give the lady at Ridge View a call and tell her that the only thing keeping us from signing a lease was the price of the 2BR. They were running a special a few weeks ago on 2BR's for $911 a month, but they were going so quickly that the management company decided they didn't need to be on special and ended it. So I figured it wouldn't hurt to try, and if they knew we were REALLY interested, maybe they'd cave. And apparently they did! Ben just texted me to tell me that they came down to $911 for us! That gives us a pretty decent cushion, and with some of the other expected upcoming events in our financial lives, I think we'll be just fine :)

Are we rushing? Are we crazy? They'll hold an apartment for us for 3 months, so we're not moving in early or spending extra money or anything to do this. And while we only looked at a few places in person, we did a lot of hunting online - there just weren't many places that had a washer/dryer in-unit that were anywhere near our price range in that area. We didn't have much to go see in person. I'm such an indecisive person - I have a hard time making a decision this quickly! It's freaking me out a little! But there are only two 2BR's left, and this place really does have everything we want, and now it's within our price range. I guess it's really a no-brainer at this point...