Apartment Search - Part 2

So after i had narrowed down my neighborhood choices i started to feverishly check craigslist and westside rentals for apartments that were where i wanted to be. I was getting a little disappointed because i wasn't finding as much as i had hoped and i only had a few weeks to look so i really started thinking i was going to need to settle on something i wasn't really fond of. I knew from the previous few times i've looked at apartments that there are a lot of other people looking to move into the same place so sometimes you need to settle to get anything.

I found a few places but a lot of what i was seeing was out of my price range - i wanted to pay under 1,000 for a studio. I figured i could probably scrape together enough to pay up to 1100 but i really didn't want to be forced into doing that.

The entire looking at apartments process actually went really quick for me. I went in early to work on a friday and left early to go look at a places. I had found about 10 apartments that were close enough to what i wanted and was a little disappointed when i called the number listed and no one answered and I hadn't received a call back except for one place. I knew the best way to find a place was to look for for rent signs in the place i want to live so i figured i would take the afternoon and walk around and see what i can find.

I started out looking at a place in Koreatown right across the street from the new housing project on top of the wilshire/vermont red line station. The building was nice enough but it was a newly renovated building and after talking to the manager I could tell they had to kick everyone who was living there out and then re-did all the apartments and got a weird vibe from the building. There were plenty of apartments available but i thought i could keep looking an go back there if i didn't find anything.

After that i headed up Vermont and drove around Los Feliz for a little while and called a bunch of numbers for apartments but again, no one answered and i left a bunch of messages. Then cruised on over to hollywood area and got a call from someone at a management company letting me know that they were currently showing apartments in a building at Ivar and Yucca. I headed over there and looked at the apartment with about 3 other people who wanted to rent it. My first impression was that it was small but an amazing location. No parking and kitchen was too small for a dining room table.

I managed to look at a few other places but on the drive back to Van Nuys decided i really liked the apartment on Ivar and wanted to move on it and try to get an application in. The next day i took the train/bike to hollywood and met up with the manager to hand in the application.

The manager said she would call me on monday and let me know if i got approved - she didn't call until wednesday when i called her but i guess everything worked out. I stopped by a bank on wednesday to get a security deposit to hold the apartment and a week later i was signing a lease with the management company.

Now i'm mostly moved in and adjusting to life in hollywood. The search was fairly easy overall, i knew what i wanted and managed to find a reasonably priced place in an area that fits all my requirements. I also get to describe where i live as "a block away from the capitol records tower" or "two blocks from hollywood and vine"