By Megan Tripp, Staff Writer, Emerson College
Moving off campus sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? No pesky RAs, a full kitchen, you can have cats, and maybe a connection with that cute neighbor in a sitcom-esque love twist. Keep dreaming, underclassmen. While having your own apartment does have its perks, there is no avoiding adulthood and all its responsibilities that start to creep in on you when you move off campus. You can, however, make your experience as painless as possible by following these simple guidelines. If you don’t do anything like I did, you’ll be perfectly fine.
1) Choose your roommates wisely. Even if your friend says that their friend from that one class freshman year is a great person…don’t move in with them. You should know very well how your roommates live, clean, interact with you and other people, and how responsible they are before you consider living with them. During the holidays, you might be thinking a lot about how you can’t choose your family, but you can definitely choose your roommates, so think hard about them!
2) Designate one person in your group that will take care of the money. Make sure that they’re the most responsible of all of you (do they turn in their assignments on time, do they constantly skip class, or are they completely uninvolved in things on campus? See above: you need to know these people really well before you move in with them). Let that person be the obnoxious one about rent money, both for the beginning stages where you’re paying security deposits and real estate brokers fees, and during the lease when you’re paying rent. If one person is chosen to handle the finances, there won’t be any confusion or “but I thought you were taking care of it this month” crap that can get you in trouble with your landlord.
3) In the beginning stages, when you and your roommates are paying first month/last month/security deposit and cutting large checks to the broker and landlord, pool all your money together a week before you’re scheduled to hand over the checks. Don’t EVER offer to cover anyone in your group who doesn’t have the money on time. One of my roommates covered another potential roommate for the first large payment and twelve hours before we were supposed to pay the last amount and sign the lease, the potential bailed out on us, saying they didn’t have even half the money to repay the first installment. Don’t let it happen to you. Get all your money together early.
4) Use a broker or a realtor. Yeah - my group and I saved some money by not using one (they usually charge half the first month’s rent amount for their services) - but with potential roommates dropping out at the last minute, and long complicated legal documents being thrown at us, we would have been much better off if we had someone to explain everything to us.
5) If your landlord doesn’t have the apartment cleaned before you move in, call/pay for a cleaning service to deep clean the place the day before you show up with your moving vans. My apartment was vacated by the previous tenants in a hurry and we moved in the very next day. The previous tenants didn’t even vacuum which set a horrible precedent for our cleanliness standards. If you start out with a sparkling clean apartment, you’ll be much more motivated to keep it sparkling clean throughout the lease.
6) I only have experience living in Allston so I can’t attest to the benefits of living other places in Boston, but Allston has many good aspects to consider. It’s perfect for big groups of people who want to live together. My whole street is made up of four bedroom apartments with six apartments per building. The apartments in Allston tend to be more spacious, which is good for parties. However, you have to remember that you’re not the only ones who will be throwing parties, so you’ll have to deal with a lot more noise. When your downstairs neighbors play dubstep so loud on their professional sound system that your coffee table starts vibrating across the room, take a deep breath first. Definitely go downstairs and talk to them, but keep in mind that you don’t want them to complain about your noise the next time your apartment has a party. Allston neighborhood relationships can be a bit tricky, but the key is patience.
If I could go back and do everything all over again, I would definitely do things differently, so take a minute to think things through before you make your off-campus decisions. I think the ultimate piece of advice I can give is to be patient and don’t stress. Quick, stressed out decisions can cause a lot of problems later on.
Megan Tripp is a senior Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. When she's not writing, she drinks copious anounts of coffee, watches Netflix, and thinks about what she wants to write next. Contact Megan on Twitter.
Image: Apartment-tips-forrrent.com
Moving off campus sounds glamorous, doesn’t it? No pesky RAs, a full kitchen, you can have cats, and maybe a connection with that cute neighbor in a sitcom-esque love twist. Keep dreaming, underclassmen. While having your own apartment does have its perks, there is no avoiding adulthood and all its responsibilities that start to creep in on you when you move off campus. You can, however, make your experience as painless as possible by following these simple guidelines. If you don’t do anything like I did, you’ll be perfectly fine.
1) Choose your roommates wisely. Even if your friend says that their friend from that one class freshman year is a great person…don’t move in with them. You should know very well how your roommates live, clean, interact with you and other people, and how responsible they are before you consider living with them. During the holidays, you might be thinking a lot about how you can’t choose your family, but you can definitely choose your roommates, so think hard about them!
2) Designate one person in your group that will take care of the money. Make sure that they’re the most responsible of all of you (do they turn in their assignments on time, do they constantly skip class, or are they completely uninvolved in things on campus? See above: you need to know these people really well before you move in with them). Let that person be the obnoxious one about rent money, both for the beginning stages where you’re paying security deposits and real estate brokers fees, and during the lease when you’re paying rent. If one person is chosen to handle the finances, there won’t be any confusion or “but I thought you were taking care of it this month” crap that can get you in trouble with your landlord.
3) In the beginning stages, when you and your roommates are paying first month/last month/security deposit and cutting large checks to the broker and landlord, pool all your money together a week before you’re scheduled to hand over the checks. Don’t EVER offer to cover anyone in your group who doesn’t have the money on time. One of my roommates covered another potential roommate for the first large payment and twelve hours before we were supposed to pay the last amount and sign the lease, the potential bailed out on us, saying they didn’t have even half the money to repay the first installment. Don’t let it happen to you. Get all your money together early.
4) Use a broker or a realtor. Yeah - my group and I saved some money by not using one (they usually charge half the first month’s rent amount for their services) - but with potential roommates dropping out at the last minute, and long complicated legal documents being thrown at us, we would have been much better off if we had someone to explain everything to us.
5) If your landlord doesn’t have the apartment cleaned before you move in, call/pay for a cleaning service to deep clean the place the day before you show up with your moving vans. My apartment was vacated by the previous tenants in a hurry and we moved in the very next day. The previous tenants didn’t even vacuum which set a horrible precedent for our cleanliness standards. If you start out with a sparkling clean apartment, you’ll be much more motivated to keep it sparkling clean throughout the lease.
6) I only have experience living in Allston so I can’t attest to the benefits of living other places in Boston, but Allston has many good aspects to consider. It’s perfect for big groups of people who want to live together. My whole street is made up of four bedroom apartments with six apartments per building. The apartments in Allston tend to be more spacious, which is good for parties. However, you have to remember that you’re not the only ones who will be throwing parties, so you’ll have to deal with a lot more noise. When your downstairs neighbors play dubstep so loud on their professional sound system that your coffee table starts vibrating across the room, take a deep breath first. Definitely go downstairs and talk to them, but keep in mind that you don’t want them to complain about your noise the next time your apartment has a party. Allston neighborhood relationships can be a bit tricky, but the key is patience.
If I could go back and do everything all over again, I would definitely do things differently, so take a minute to think things through before you make your off-campus decisions. I think the ultimate piece of advice I can give is to be patient and don’t stress. Quick, stressed out decisions can cause a lot of problems later on.
Megan Tripp is a senior Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. When she's not writing, she drinks copious anounts of coffee, watches Netflix, and thinks about what she wants to write next. Contact Megan on Twitter.
Image: Apartment-tips-forrrent.com