GENERAL TERMS EXPLAINED

If you are an apartment searching rookie, we’ll bet that you are going to freak out every time when you open some website related to rental search. Even if you are among All-stars, searching will put you outside of your comfort zone since you’ll never know what to expect and what you are going to find. Useful tip: coffee will not help you here, it will make you even more anxious.

Just thinking about moving is already a stressful process, so why searching for your next stop would be any different. We all want to have the best for ourselves, which makes problem even bigger and demanding. Hell, there are so much things to learn and overcome! If only somebody else could do that for us…

Hey, all of that means that you have to be prepared. You need to know common expressions and when you finally arrange an apartment viewing, you will know what to expect.

 

HOW TO BECOME THE MASTER OF THE RENTAL SEARCHIN’

Start from the “simple” website such as Craigslist. Look out for the city where you are planning to move, and click onto apts / housing. Here you’ll find following expressions which we are about to explain:

 

APARTMENT RENTALS/SHARES/SUBLETS

Renting. Renting an apartment by yourself will provide you with the most freedom; however, it can also be very expensive.

Share. A cost-efficient way to live in an apartment is to share it with other people. You agree to divide responsibilities and payment of rent and bills.

Sublet. Another option is to sublet an apartment from a tenant who leaves for a period of time – a few months or longer. You assume the responsibilities of paying rent and bills and the original tenant assumes all responsibilities under the lease.

 

HOUSING TYPES

There are various types, but we will focus on the most common. Depending on the length of your future stay, you might be interested in renting the room, apartment, studio, flat, condo or loft.

ROOM

a-room-shared-apartment-year

Very common search for big cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco and satellites, etc. Like we stated in the previous article (link) you will have to be present since other inhabitants of the apartment would love to get to know you and double check if you are a perfect fit for them. And if they are a perfect fit for you, as well. That makes sense, right?

 

APARTMENT

Avon-apartments

There is definition online which says that this type of property is not individually owned. What you will find related to this type is that there could be apartments without any bedrooms (studios), 1-bedroom apts which means that there is at least one living room and one bedroom, and the rest is pure logic.

Good thing about apartments is that they usually belong to some Property, and based on quality of the complex, that Property may have some neat features – pool, gym, tennis court and similar.

Advanced search may include some extras you would love to know about – is it furnished? Is there laundry in the apt, or on site? If is not, where is the nearest one? What about parking? Do I have parking space and if not, where can I park my car? Is the apartment pet friendly?

 

CONDO

condo-apartments

Very similar to the previous type, but the difference is that this one belongs to the owner or will become in private ownership at some point. What we stated above, applies here as well.

 

FLAT

flat-apartment-bozzuto 

Very simple – one or more units within a building. Typical for larger cities, usually in densely populated areas. What we stated above, applies here as well.

 

LOFT

loft-apartment-boston

This is the way we imagine life in the New York, more precisely in the East Village – a space at the top of a building, under the roof. 

A more precise definition states that loft might be used for storing things and usually is being entered by a ladder, or sometimes made into a room you can live in.

May 13, 2017