Go West

There are a lot of apartment-for-rent sites out there: a handful of big-name places, a few social media kinds of sites that also offer housing listings, and then a whole crapton of no-name smaller sites which usually just link back to the bigger names.

Places like Aparments.com, Rent.com, Trulia, Zillow, and Craigslist have most of the listings.  Others like radpad or padmapper just aggregate those together.  So, searching multiple sites usually means seeing the same places over and over in different formats.  Then, of course, you have all the major apartment complexes with their own websites and listing information.

I don't even remember how I got to it, but for some reason I ended up on a random, no-clue-who-this-is rental site.  Something like aparment-homes-rental-listing-for-you (not the actual name).  I shrugged and just looked to see what was there, which was about 99% what I'd seen before.

And then one place that I hadn't seen.  You see, after you look at the maps for days on end, you get to recognize the listings just by locations.  "Oh, that's Tiverton Court.  That one's Gayley Manor."  This was off to the side, near everything I recognized but in a spot I hadn't seen before.

I clicked on the ad, and there was a listing for a studio for $1400.  Okay, that's pretty good pricing; usually means a 300-400 sq ft place with no parking, often with only an efficiency kitchen, but it was worth looking at as it was about a half mile from campus.  I went a bit deeper: not only does it have a full kitchen and including parking, but it's 600 sq ft and has a fireplace.

... Seriously?  A fireplace?  And that size for that price?  Okay, what's wrong with it?

To put this in perspective, I have a 1050 sq ft 2b2ba in Pasadena.  Market rate is $2600 for my place, about $2.50 a square foot.  A 2b2ba in Westwood, within a half mile of campus, is usually 3400-3800 for1000 sq feet - about $3.40 or more a square foot.  Studios I've been looking at have been even more, usually $4+ a square foot.  At $1400 for 600 sq feet, this place is cheaper than my current apartment and anything I've seen in the area at all.  So what's the catch?

I started looking for reviews of the building.  There were a lot on the UCLA student sites, mostly stating that the building was okay, the apartments were great, and the manager was hell on wheels.  Reading more, I read various lists of complaints about mistreatment and strict rules and such, with a handful of people saying, "He's really not that bad - he was actually really nice to me and quick to fix things."

The common factor in the good reviews was that they were written by older people or non-students.  The common factor for the bad reviews was that they were almost all written by younger students.  Okay, so the guy may have a problem with young college students; that's understandable, even if it sucks.  But it meant I should keep an open mind on it.

I was still really worried about why it was only advertised on one podunk website with low traffic, but I held that to the side and contacted the leasing office.  Yes, the place was available; yes, the listing information was correct.  So I scheduled a visit the next day.

The manager was actually really nice to me - a bit abrupt, sure, but he's also foreign (the reviews mostly said "Arab"; I think he's actually Slavic of some kind, maybe Russian or eastern European, but I haven't asked).  The apartment was almost exactly as pictured (the layout was half-reversed; everything else was the same).   Sure, the elevator and hallways needed from TLC - a scrubbing, maybe a paint job - but the inside of the apartment was pretty good (the rug has stains, but I'll be covering that mostly anyway).

He walked me down to the garage and talked about his "rules".  They centered around the fact that it was a "quiet building" - "No one rents here to party; if they want that, they can go two block that way" (waving towards Frat Row which was, in fact, two blocks away).  "I have a lot of students, and 99 percent of the time, mom and dad pay the rent.  That's fine.  If they want to have people over to watch football, fine.  Enjoy the game, enjoy your drink, enjoy your pizza, but half an hour later, it's quiet time again."

Most of the rules that people were complaining about made total sense to me.  One was a no-sublease clause: a lot of students sublease their places for quarters when they aren't in class and go back home, but that makes it a lot harder for management to know what's going on in the building.  Similar for parking spaces: yes, it may seem weird to restrict parking, but a lot of students don't drive and then rent out their spaces to other students, which also makes it hard for management to know who is coming and going from the building.  And the "quiet building" restrictions weren't actually any worse than I heard at my current place, which is mostly young professionals.

I told him a little about me, handed over copies of my pay stubs, and he looked a little surprised.  But from that point on, he essentially treated me as if my moving in was a done deal.  I paid the holding deposit (which goes towards the security deposit), got the formal application to fill out, and let him know that I'd be moving in "piecemeal" since I didn't have to be out of my place until 9/15.  "Is okay," he said, "Come by next Friday and pick up your keys.  You can start whenever; the place is empty anyway.  I'll get you a temporary parking spot near the elevator so you can unload more easily."

The final price for the place is actually $1500 a month.  When he was typing up the receipt, I noticed it said $1600.  "I thought it was $1400," I said, and handed him the ad.  He looked at it, said that it shouldn't be correct - "they're losing money" - but then kind of shrugged.  As he started re-typing the receipt, he paused and said, "How about $1500."  I agreed - it's still an amazing deal.  Heck, if he'd insisted on $1600, I would have gone with it.  I did pull up the ad on my computer to show him where it was listed so that he could take the info back to the leasing company.

So, that's that.  I've got a place in Westwood, my own place for less than I was expecting to pay.  I dropped the application off on Saturday, and I'm supposed to call him today or tomorrow and let him know when I'll be coming by on Friday (probably 3:30-4; I'll take a half day off of work, since I need to hit the bank and get a certified check for the remainder of the deposit and first month's rent).  My official move-in is 8/15, but when I visit Friday, I'm supposed to get the keys and remote for the garage.  I'll also take my tape measure to figure out the exact dimensions of the place (I have a rough idea, but I want to start planning furniture and rugs and such).  I'll also take some photos, for documentation of the condition as well as my own interests.

7 weeks and counting until school starts.  I'm actually doing this.