We came to Seattle a week before my start date , so that we will have enough time to find an apartment and settle down. We started keeping a eye on Craigslist and other apartment listing websites from February. After some research we decided 1500 would be a wholesome budget to find a 2 bed apartment near Bellevue area. It will be 10-15 minutes drive from my work. The neighborhood seems a good combination of suburb and downtown life style.
My company gave me an agent to show us some apartments in the area. We had a half day tour in a very rainy day . It was a epic waste of time. The apartments were pretty dingy, even the renovated one. The pictures in the apartment listings were from model home. So the actual apartment look nothing like the picture. The square footage for too bed is tinier than my one bed apartment in Houston. Yes I know everything is bigger and better in Texas. However this apartments are worse than my student apartment in Denton, Tx.
In Seattle the rental market is highly unregulated. They fix the price based on God knows what and it changes everyday , specially in the summer. We also found most of the properties are own by few big company i.e Essex, Equity. So it's more of a oligopoly.
After you see an apartment , they will push you give them a check anywhere from 200- 600 bucks to hold the apartment as you decide. And you have to decide in 24 hours, otherwise the money will be for gone. If you go after that day they will increase the rent. Most of the apartment don't have any storage space. The bedrooms are so tiny that if could hardly fit a queen bed. Walk in closets are very rear.
In the afternoon, Yeameen and I decided to tour the area ourselves. We found one , in one of our proffered location , However is was 300 bucks over our budget. We had a friend living in the same complex. After giving some thoughts we decided to go for it.
The manager promised us to give us rate from 2 weeks before which was about 60 bucks less than the day we applied. We were happy. We thought he was doing us a favor. So we applied and gave him a holding fee, though we will be moving in immediately. The next day leasing agent called and told us we have to pay 2 weeks of rent , even though we won't be able to move in there until the background check is cleared. The leasing agent was quite rude. It was one of the Essex property near Factoria. We wanted to talk to the manager about why this wasn't mentioned before. He down right denied it.
The we negotiated a car port for 6 months and 20 bucks more than the price we were. originally told. As we both will be working for their preferred employers they would waive us 200 bucks security deposit. Instead they asked for half month rent as security deposit. At that point I was pretty mad and upset. I felt betrayed. I told her I don't wanna live their.
The next day I looked some other apartments , most of them were tiny, dingy, old and gorse. I was pretty frustrated at that point. All of a sudden I saw a now leasing sign and decided to check it our. It was on the border of Bellevue and Redmond. Great walk-ability score. There were lots of desi woman in the street with their small children. The apartment was 1044 square feet, bigger than anything we have seen so far. It was in ground floor. It was a small apartment complex. The manager was nice. He let me move in immediately and told me would not charge for the rest of the days in april if I gave him 2 months advance. At the time , it looked like a great deal, specially when I didn't have any roof over my head. I stayed the night there. I found the toilets are nasty. It had stains. I lit big scented candle for 4 hours still couldn't get rid of the curry smell.
The next morning I told the manager that I won't be able to live there. First he tried to convince me to stay. However he was nice enough to give me the rent back.
I checked into a hotel. At this point I have seen most of the apartments in Bellevue. Even with our increased budget of 1900 we couldn't find anything that we could live in for the next one year. Yeameen told if we can put 1900 in Bellevue , we can be able to afford 2500. Let's look into South Lake Union area near down town Seattle. As it will be closer to his work and about 15 miles from mine. He found some newly built apartment ranging anywhere between 2000 to 2900. The next morning I went to check it out. South lake union has lots of new constructions. There are lots of construction and detours. The apartment amenities are nice , but they have very little usable living space. They took the open concept living to a new dimension. None of there bedroom has windows or doors. Some has pocket doors but the walls are low, So you won't have any privacy. And the size of the rooms are even tinier than before, no window, pocket door , in other word you will be living in a closet.
I was not comfortable driving in hilly south lake union area. With many constructions and detours I lost my way several times. Somehow I ended up in Mercer island. None of the Washington highway has service roads, that If you miss one exit you could turn around. There are tunnels in the middle of highways. I was panicking.
Somehow I ended up in Downtown Bellevue. Here I was several pent house style apartment with Now leasing sign on. They are definitely bigger, well maintained, reasonably priced and their open concept is not as crazy as the South lake union apartments. How ever you have to pay extra 75-100 for parking and none of them has swimming pool of jacuzzi. In this area our budget would not allow us to look for 2 beds. So I start looking for 1 bed with most usable space. I found one with a walk in closet. As soon as I saw the double door refrigerator and walk in closet I was sold. It's a good location for Yeameen as well. Since he will be using public transportation.
We signed the lease immediately.
I'm pretty excited to start my downtown life :)
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