Budgeting In DC: Housing

Just to preface, I have probably researched almost 24 hours total or more on DC housing and I have found little hope. Coming from a town that the rent is as cheap as a mediocre flat screen television, it is insane to see the amount of money people are willing to pay for apartments. So to begin...

Location

This is definitely important to decide what kind of location you want to be in.

A place full of amentities?
Close to the Metro?
Young professional community?
Suburbs (which are usually cheaper)?
A place with good schools?
Close to the action (near downtown DC)
...or close to your work?

These are all crucial questions to ask yourself. Before I started looking at apartments I made a list. It went something like this:

2 bedroom, 1-2 bath
In-unit laundry
Closet in bedroom
Within 30 minutes of work (Landover)
Close to Metro
24-hour fitness center
On-site parking (that is free)
...and under $1000/month (including utilities)

When I sat down to research I had this list at hand and as I went on the apartment search sites I plugged in these filters. It was much easier to see who really had the kind of apartment that I wanted this way. Of course my budget was just for how much I was looking to pay (2 bedrooms are much more than that).


Housing (in general)

My process may be different then others but I found this was the best for me. I was skeptical to look on Craigslist so I waited to the very end of the day to do that. I first contacted the people I knew in the area and asked if they knew anyone who needed a roommate. References are always better then going in blind.

Then I researched the heck out of google in order to find about 20 places that I thought might be acceptable.

After that I went on apartmentratings.com and looked at the reviews for each place. This part did take a while because you have to read these with a grain of salt. Not everyone has the same experience so I looked for important things like "terrible parking" or "maintenance was unresponsive." These are things that helped me weed out the "not so great" choices.

By the end I had about 4 apartments that were in budget and also had good ratings. Then that's when you call and set up tours! Done!

Craigslist was not much help to me mostly because a lot of the posts were ads and did not show real people who were looking for a roommate. MBC Connect was a great resource for Christians who are looking to room with other Christians.

Roommate sites like Roomster and RoomieMatch were definitely no help at all. They tried to get you to buy a subscription which is not enticing at all.

That is all for now! More to come.

               

In The Beginning...

As many of you already may know, I am risking it all and moving everything to the DC area for a job at 2U. This will probably be the most terrifying time ever which is why I am insanely grateful to have friends and family in my life to support me. I wanted to do this blog series to highlight the ups and downs of post-college, new job life. I will hopefully be attending grad school as well during this time which will make it even more crazy. 

These posts will be about my new experiences in a new city and how I (hopefully) persevere through it. The main thing right now is attempting to find housing in this expensive place. Who knew that a monthly rent for one could be over $1,000?! 

Another reason why I think this blog may or may not be interesting to the real world is because I have searched for a comprehensive list of budgeting tactics for this city and have found nothing. I know it would have been awesome to find something that outlined the metro costs, gas prices, groceries, and housing options all in one place. Of course every area is different but I will just showcase my findings to the best of my ability. 

That is all for now! More posts to come.