Renter's Guide

It doesn’t matter how much you love your rental: The day your renewal notice comes in with a rent hike you never imagined, all those fuzzy feelings might just fly out the window. That said, how do you know if it’s worth it to move? From an economic standpoint, know that your next landlord will need the first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit, and for some apartments, a real estate broker’s fee.

If your standard reaction to watching HGTV is, “I want to do that, too,” but renovating a fixer-upper is out of your budget (and your skill set), there’s a new virtual way you can satisfy that renovation itch—without having to take out a mortgage or hire a contractor.

If you need a job and a place to live, why not skip half the stress and get both at the same time? Apart from the military, there are plenty of gigs available that offer free or low-cost housing for employees. Jobs that come with lodging can make it more affordable to live in desirable spots like New York and California, notes Alexandra Levit, chair of DeVry University’s Career Advisory Board.

In many ways, living with a roommate is a rite of passage that teaches us about compromise, companionship, and responsibility. But, for many, it can also be a nightmare: From unpaid bills to illicit behaviors, a number of bad things can pop up when you live with a complete stranger, or even a friend, without doing your due diligence. However, avoiding these circumstances can be as easy as having a brief, honest conversation.

If you’ve ever rented before, you know that all landlords are not created equal. While some do the absolute minimum to get your monthly rent check, others do an incredible job at maintaining clean buildings and keeping their tenants’ best interests in mind. Recently, Brick Underground released a list of these amazing landlords. It got me thinking: Who better than a great landlord to give maintenance tips?

In the immortal words of Jimmy McMillan, “The rent is too damn high!” I live in Austin, which means my wallet cries each time I pay rent. Of course, I don’t live in a city where rent is sky-high like New York or San Francisco… but still, I don’t live in Toledo or Memphis, cities where the rent is barely-there. The burden for this writer is heavy to bear alone.

Moving soon? You’re going to need packing tape—and a lot of it. But before you head to your local hardware supply store to pick up a few rolls, first think, “Is this going to cause more trouble than it’s worth?” From quickly losing adhesive to not being as durable as you’d like, bad tape can make moving a whole lot harder than it needs to be. And who knows how to avoid these sticky (pardon the pun) moving situations? The pros, of course.

You can only have your leftover lo mein eaten by your roommates so many times before you start to curse communal living. And for the legions of recent grads who are moving on from college dorms this spring, living alone may sound like a dream come true. But is it financially feasible? Locking down a job is the first step to determining your rent budget.

In the past seven years, my family and I have been through seven moves. That may seem like a lot, but as a former military spouse and sailor, I can tell you it’s normal for families like mine. You don’t just move—you move quickly: You only get 10 days after you transfer to a new duty station to find a house and move into it. Yeesh! Most of the time, families spend those first days in a hotel (which, thankfully, the military pays for), but I was rarely interested in this option.

Finding reasonably-priced real estate in New York City is no simple task. So if you happen to be breezing through the apartment listings looking for your next home, you may come across this one-bedroom unit in an adorable East Village co-op building. But before you start packing boxes and updating your magazine subscriptions, you may want to look a bit closer. Listed at $2,500, the apartment is extremely charming.

Want to have a one-bedroom apartment all to yourself? Living alone invariably costs more than splitting the rent and utilities. But the price of escaping a roommate’s obnoxious habits or stray toenail clippings is a lot lower in some places than others — like Bloomington, Ind., for example. Most single Americans prefer to live alone, if they can afford to.

A new baby on the way, a cockroach infestation, a creepy roommate: While there are many legitimate reasons to break a lease, it’s often easier said than done. But you’re not entirely out of luck if you’re looking to hightail it out of there in one piece. Here are our tips for escaping with your sanity and your security deposit: When you’re hoping to break a lease, time is of the essence. Be honest and open with your landlord, and explain your situation.

How many times have you heard that renters are “just throwing their money away”? Well that’s not true, for a few reasons. First, owning a home is expensive. There’s a mortgage — which, in the early years, is more taxes and interest than actual equity (i.e. the first few years of owning a home is also throwing a lot of money away; I broke down my actual mortgage payment in this post, if you’re interested in reading more about that).

Millennials get a bad rap. We killed chain restaurants, doorbells and, if you take this recent study at face value, we’re killing neighborly love. But not according to me. The team at Safe Home surveyed 1,000 Americans to discover how close we are to the people that live near us.

You may have heard about guarantors during your apartment hunt, but if you’re not familiar with what they actually do—or how you can still find one if you don’t know anyone personally who can be a guarantor (or even land an apartment you love without one!)—we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything you need to know about getting a guarantor. A guarantor is someone who signs your lease with you to guarantee payment in case you can’t pay for some reason.

You know the saying, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”? Well, that definitely applies to apartment hunting. If you see a listing for a beautiful, spacious apartment that’s well below the median rent for the neighborhood it’s in, for example, there’s gotta be a catch. Like, you know, it might not even exist (!).

There are a lot of factors that go into making a big move, and for many people, the top priority is either their job or their family. But if you’re on your own and you have job flexibility to go basically wherever you want (i.e. you work remotely), then what? In that case, you have the luxury of finding a place that suits you—and not necessarily just your career. To help you figure out the best U.S. city for you and your priorities, HighSpeedInternet.

It’s not surprising to learn that there are a lot of people who want to leave their expensive cities for a lower cost of living. But what is a little surprising? The concentration of people who want to move out of the Big Apple—a whopping 83.2 percent of renters in New York City want to settle elsewhere, according to a Apartment List’s annual survey.

Most experts agree that people shouldn’t be spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, but for many people, staying below that 30 percent mark is simply not doable. If you feel like you’re paying far more on rent than you should be, you’re definitely not alone. A recent study from Harvard found that many U.S. households are actually cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than the 30 percent recommendation for housing.

If you’re living in a major metropolitan area, chances are you think your rent is pretty brutal. Well, it’s time to batten down the hatches, because it could get even higher. A new study conducted by Apartment List predicts that rents in big cities are on track to significantly increase in the next couple years, and for an unlikely reason: job growth. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “More jobs! That’s great!” And certainly it is, for unemployment rates.

The whole point of having a job is to be able to afford housing, food and the necessities so you can keep on keeping on, right? So it would make sense for salaries to rise with housing costs, but that’s not always the case. In many areas, rent prices move on up without giving wages a chance to catch up, and it especially varies when you factor in the industries people work in.

We all have deal breakers in just about every facet of our lives—from dating to jobs, and of course, to our homes, there are some things we just can’t deal with. And those deal breakers are different for everyone—for one person, a roommate leaving dishes in the sink overnight could feel like the end of the world, while for another person, cleanliness (or lack thereof) is a non-issue compared to whether or not they get along with their roommate on a personal level.

No matter where you live, everyone dreams of scoring an affordable apartment with awesome amenities. Whether it’s a proper doorman or a shared laundry room, for many of us, the communal comforts offered in an apartment building is what makes or breaks the decision on whether or not we’ll live there. But how much are we really paying for these perks?

There’s a lot about the roommate experience that can be tricky. Like chores, chores and, uh… chores. But even after you’ve mastered homekeeping, there are still some things about sharing a home that may come as a surprise. For example, your roommate’s renter’s insurance policy might not cover your stuff.

Daydreaming is usually reserved for the impossible—such as musing about what it would be like to live in a giant penthouse in New York City when even a tiny studio is out of your budget, or to quit your job and travel the world without having to worry about a thing. But sometimes the things we don’t often think about as daydreams can become our biggest fantasies.

As a renter, you know what your price range is and what you’re looking for in an apartment, but do you know your rights? Last year when I was apartment hunting in Brooklyn, I was shocked to learn that it was possible that a potential new landlord might ask for 6 months’ rent up front for my security deposit (luckily that didn’t end up being the case, but still!).

Much like finding out your new boyfriend is actually the heir to the throne of a small European country, living a life without rent is something that most of us will only dream about. But there are actual, real, human people living that life—who eat, sleep and work in the five boroughs without spending their hard-earned cash on their apartment. How do they do it? They’ve managed to co-opt the conventional “hard-earned cash” equation and cut out the middle man.

Nationwide, home renters are on the rise. So much in fact that according to a recent study by ABODO based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 36.4% of the American population is renting their household—the largest percentage the nation has seen since the 1960s. And as the number of renters continues to grow (there were 1.4 million new renter households in 2015 alone) so do renter-dominated cities. As of 2015, renting has the become the majority in 21 cities across the United States.

As if renting an apartment wasn’t stressful enough: Between the cutthroat competition, massive upfront expense, and daunting paperwork, now renters in more than 1,000 cities can add the panic-inducing thrill of online bidding wars to the process. Rentberry is an online rental marketplace that allows prospective tenants to bid for available apartments.

California is one of those places people (at least the ones who didn’t grow up there) dream about moving to some day. Between the glamour of Hollywood, the laid back vibes and the beautiful beaches, it’s definitely a desirable destination. But have you ever wondered what living on the California coast really looks like? We combed through rental listings to find apartments, condos and houses in cities up and down the coastline, so you can see for yourself.

Ever wonder what it’s really like to live in the most expensive neighborhoods in New York, or if it’s even possible to afford it (let alone live on your own there)? To satisfy your curiosity, we looked for the most affordable studio apartments on the market right now in the 5 most expensive neighborhoods. These 5 neighborhoods are based on RentHop’s 2016 Q4 rental trends, and were chosen because they have the highest median rent for studios in Manhattan.

There are plenty of legitimate benefits to home ownership (like tax credits and one day—in 30 years—getting to own a home outright). And of course there are obvious differences between renting and buying in terms of what you can and can’t do, but there are also a lot of myths—and unnecessary moral implications—surrounding home ownership and renting that you absolutely don’t need to buy into.

Looking to move to New York, but don’t know where to actually look for your new home? NYC is full of amazing neighborhoods and each one has something special to offer, but if you’re looking for a less expensive start, these neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens can boast more affordable rent, tons of parks, amazing food and plenty of culture—not to mention an easier commute.

If you’ve ever searched for an apartment in New York City, you’ve probably heard the term “pre-war” before, but are you familiar with what it means? Pre-war apartments refer to buildings that were constructed before 1939 (AKA those that were built before World War II began). Pre-war style came about during a population boom in the city in the 1880s, according to Street Easy.

As a renter, no doubt you’ve experienced the annoyance of paying rental application fee after rental application fee while searching for a new place. $20, $30, sometimes even $50 a pop—these fees can add up quickly. What’s more, if you live in a particularly competitive rental market, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, or Portland, you’re likely to lay out $100+ on fees before finally beating out the throngs of other applicants and landing a new rental.

If you’re new to the apartment hunt, the idea of using a broker might be a very confusing concept—especially so if you’re moving from a lower-demand rental market to a bustling (and crowded) one like those in NYC or San Francisco.

Two thousand square feet is massive in almost anyone’s book, so you can expect that apartments in this tier are going to fetch top dollar in any region. But “top dollar,” it turns out, is quite different depending on where you happen to be apartment hunting. Although SLC and NYC don’t seem all that different when you abbreviate them, living in a rental in the former would be about $6,000 cheaper than the latter.

Whether you’re considering a move soon, or you’re just curious about how the rest of the country lives, this should prove to be a fun adventure: Take a quick tour of the country—five apartments at a time—to discover how rent can fluctuate from city to city and coast to coast. First up, a sampler of 500-square-foot units.

I move a lot. Like, a lot. I even wrote an article about the benefits of being a serial mover like myself. And in moving so much, I’ve gotten really good at finding great apartments, the newest one always better than the last. (Ask my friends, they’ll back me up!) I’m currently in my seventh Seattle apartment with a view of the Space Needle from my living room. So I promise, I know a thing or two!

Maybe you found the perfect apartment after weeks of fruitless searching, but the rent is just a wee bit out of your budget. Or maybe you just received the renewal notice for your current apartment from your landlord, and your rent is getting bumped up a lot more than you’d like for next year. Your first step, in either case, is to negotiate a lower rate. But what do you do when the landlord won’t budge?

Do you like your apartment, or do you like like it? When you’re living in modest digs with modest means, you’re likely always going to think about whether the grass would be greener or the carpet would be cleaner if you moved to a new place. But deciding whether to renew or re-locate shouldn’t be a daydream decision. There are real, solid strategies you can start to think about as you near the end of your lease.

While buying a home often seems like the mark of adulthood and stability, there are plenty of reasons home ownership is not all it’s cracked up to be. So whether you aren’t in a position to buy a home at this point or you just aren’t sure about taking the plunge, here are some reasons to celebrate your non-homeowner freedom. If you buy a home, get ready to take on the management and expense of every single thing that goes wrong.

You’ve tried so hard to spice up your rental but it’s just not quite doing the trick. Is it time to consider the horrible-of-all-horrible four letter words? Is it time to move? Answer these six questions to know for sure. There are lots of ways to change the aesthetics of your place, but some things just can’t be fixed.

When you’re looking for a new apartment you no doubt have a laundry list of what you’re looking for and what you’re not looking for. Some criteria you may be uncompromising about (like the maximum price) but there are always secondary criteria that are more flexible. Which floor the apartment is on likely falls into this category and there are pros and cons for each floor. I live in Brownstone Brooklyn where most apartment buildings are 4 story walkups.

Everyone has moving horror stories, but there are just some things you don’t think to check until you’ve already signed a lease. Here’s 10 things that should be on everyone’s “must-check” list. 1. Hallway/Doorway Size: Sometimes it’s easy to get carried away with great architecture lines of square footage, but sometimes (Even if you buy small furniture) things simply don’t fit in awkward hallways.

They often call getting married and moving in together as “taking the plunge,” but if you ask us, moving in with someone you know and love is a lot less scary than moving in with a stranger. Don’t go into the roommate interview unprepared; we’ve got the questions to consider before you both sign the lease.