Heat, but no luck yet

June 18, 2007 | By Theresa AuthorMy First Apartment

No luck lately. I’ve been so busy at work, that filing through Craigslist, calling and emailing people has been almost impossible. Two apartments I was planning to see in Washington Square West were taken the day before I had the chance to look at them. I called The Chancellor since I’ve seen ads everywhere, and…

90 Degrees of Apartment Searching

June 1, 2007 | By Theresa AuthorMy First Apartment

Hi there! I’m Theresa. I’m currently living in Staten Island, NY. I had three roommates there, but they’ve all up and left due to life changes/hating NYC, and I can’t afford to stay there anymore. I’m looking in Philadelphia, where I went to school and where a number of my good friends reside. I’m pretty…

Renovation gamble that paid off

January 24, 2007 | By MFA Editors AuthorMy First Apartment

Our friend Ned reports how he gambled and won in the renovation game. A recent Temple University grad, he is now living in the Society Hill neighborhood in Philadelphia in a totally renovated rental. Here’s how he did it. ”As I watched another open house-attendee write a check for the unit’s deposit, I berated myself…

The next step

April 27, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

So I’ve found a place, and that’s all well and good. We went over the other day to sign a sublet agreement, and everything is set up for the first month. The landlady prorated it from the time I move in, which is awesome because it saves us a couple hundred. She did ask for…

Yes!

April 22, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

So we found a place and we’re all set to go! The place that I was really excited about ended up not working out because the other couple she showed it to wanted it. She ultimately just didn’t feel comfortable giving it to us, and that’s totally fine. I mean, I was heartbroken until this…

Still searching…

April 18, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

The place that I looked at on Saturday was unbelievable. Just totally amazing. It was on a phenomenal block right in the neighborhood where we want to live; the apartment itself was amazing; the price was totally right; and the girl who lives there was totally cool. I got there and helped her move her…

Harshtober

April 12, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

So we didn’t get the place that we really wanted. We looked at it on Tuesday, put our name in on Friday night, but the woman who advertised it didn’t get back to us for a couple days and apparently in that time someone else snagged it. Ho hum. So we sent out another round…

Continuing into the soft, green night

April 9, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

So we put in our names on the one place we really liked. We had to wait for a while after we looked at it, though, and the girl hasn’t gotten back to us. This place is really quite nice. And this weather-beaten poster nearby tells the story of the people in the neighborhood: It…

Onward, not backwards!

April 6, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

I’m finding out that the most frustrating thing about hunting for apartments on a strict timeline is that it has to be done on a rolling basis. We looked at two more apartments, both of which were gigantic one-bedroom deals with hardwood floors and the whole nine yards. The first one, though, was the first…

Laying the groundwork

March 24, 2006 | By Drew AuthorMy First Apartment

This is the street that I live on right now, off-campus at La Salle University in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. I like to think of it as the French Riviera of La Salle. It’s a pretty nice place, but it’s really far from the city. It’s a city of 1.2 million people, and the…