The Pros and Cons of CSAs
Seattlest Pix 09Nov08
Weekly Around the -Ists
Seattlest Pix 09Nov09
Can't Miss It: Monday
This summer, Seattlest thought we were smart. Oh so smart. We were engaged. Our financial missteps were behind us. We’d plotted to start saving dough—to get a less-expensive apartment, sock the monthly savings into a high-yield account and, in a couple of years, look for a condo or fixer-upper in West Seattle.
Rent something cheaper now; buy something modest later. Damn, it felt good to be a forward-thinker.
So we searched for that less-expensive apartment. For months.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t yet drafted these handy Seattle-apartment-seeking rules:
1. Ditch your pets. At least 50% of places don’t take them, and the rest charge (a fucking lot) for the convenience. This is why we have animal shelters.
2. Ditch your significant other. Or your roommates, family, whoever you currently live with. In the long run, a studio will save you more money than a 1BR or something larger. Don’t share your space—be the king of it.3. Ditch your stuff. Less stuff = less square footage. Do you really need furniture, clothes, and all that sentimental-value crap?
4. Don’t “look forward to hearing back.” Expectation leads to disappointment. Move on to the next listing and consider yourself lucky if you get a call or reply.
5. Be wary of multi-amenity units. DW? W/D? Private balcony? All condo bait. The more, the scarier.
6. Check seattle.gov for building sales, condo permit requests, etc. We wish we’d known this right off the bat.
7. Check apartmentratings.com. The reviews are brutally honest. Honestly, sometimes too brutal. But a good gauge of how tenants like a place.
8. Ditch your budget. Between deposits and the very likely event that you’ll have to double-up on rent for a month, any long-term cash you might save is already gone.
9. Lower your standards. If the apartment’s in a good location, all other considerations—aesthetics, amenities, safety—should be secondary. And vice versa.
10. Trust no one. Not apartment managers. Not leasing agents. Not unit owners. They owe you nothing.
Ignorantly, we called and emailed a million places we found on the internets and on sandwich boards, signs in windows and flyers on bulletin boards. Maybe 2% of our inquiries garnered responses. Of the dozen places we actually viewed, three or four would accommodate the Seattlest pet-and-possession parade.
A few weeks ago, though, we found a place. At West Seattle's Watermarke, which boasted amenities we don’t have in our current, overpriced Queen Anne place. We bit. We bit and packed our shit, paid application fees, dropped money on a deposit, gave notice to our current manager and toasted ourselves. To our forward-thinking!
But we hadn’t planned well, we weren’t smart. We hadn’t played by the aforementioned rules.
There are no “less-expensive” 1BR apartments in Seattle. None with the space and legal allowances for two people, two cats, IKEA furnishings, and random shit that people acquire over 30-odd years. None in Queen Anne. None in Green Lake or Wallingford. None in Fremont, Ballard, Phinney. None in West Seattle.
Because what hasn’t gone condo in the last few years is going condo now. Nearly 1,500 Seattle apartments already have this year. And the conversionistas lurk, ready to pounce, fuck with tenants’ lives and tear the hopes out of their collective heart. Because, as the P-I notes, there's no cap on condo conversions in our city.
Accordingly, two days before our expected move-in date, we got a call.
Watermarke manager: “Oops, sorry, our building was sold to condo people this weekend. We’re asking everyone to move out. So you can’t move in.”
Seattlest: [shocked silence]
So our apartment search, initially conducted on our own terms and in our own leisurely manner, suddenly became a stressful scramble. People were already lined up for the place we were supposed to be leaving. Shit.
A week went by and we had no real leads and no hope that the supposedly accommodating Craigslist Gods would save us. (Everyone swears by the posts; no one vouches for the non-communicative people who write them. Who are you people, anyway? Do you respond to anyone?)
Over the long holiday weekend, we managed to not only get a building manager on the phone, but to see the available unit and get down to the brass tacks of paperwork. And this time we’d done some research; seattle.gov revealed nothing, our new, helpful friend at WSB knew nothing. But something felt wrong about the place; the building was eerily sleepy, the manager was new, the amenities abundant... Weird.
So, pen poised over application, we half-jokingly asked the guy if the building was on the market. Why, yes! But hey, you’d have 90 days to vacate if it was sold! Fuck us gently with a chainsaw. We walked away, bitter and cynical and formulating more rules in our head.
Now, the sand has piled high in the hourglass’ pit. We've pretty much given up on finding something “less expensive." And the competition—thanks to conversions going unchecked, and ignorant idiots like us—is fierce. We make calls. We search. We view a place. We search. We submit apps. We search. (Seriously, is it that hard to exhibit some courtesy and return a call?)
But, things could be worse. We could have had the bad news delivered under our door a week into our residency. And hey, misery does love company.
As you grow ever more desperate and pissed off, Seattle apartment-seekers—despite the savvy employment of our rules, sadly—don’t forget those who’re looking out for you. No, not Seattlest. Your state legislators!
Ahem. Is anyone out there, other than you, having better luck?
Taped sign by ERIK98122; now-defunct brick apartment by Seattle Daily Photo. Both from our flickr pool.
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Lived in a rental bldg for a year: expensive, no services or amenities (concierge, pool, gym). A month before lease was up, started checking "condo units for lease." Much better. Absentee owners need to cover homeowner dues, offer better rates than apartment bldgs. Ended up in condo with concierge, pool, gym, etc. For $300/month less.
Have since moved twice within same condo bldg, BTW, in both larger & smaller units. And agree with you that a studio's the way to go.
We ended up in similar (though much less desperate) circumstances -- our landlord raised the rent on his POS condo, so we started looking. We eventually went better place/more expensive, instead of our original thought of better place/similar price.
We took cold comfort watching our ex-landlord list the place for three months on Craigslist, gradually reducing the price from his sky-high initial request, before it rented. Ha! (And in this market, you know he had to be smoking something -- he initially asked for $1400/month when we'd been paying $1050 and thought that was pushing it.)
There *are* affordable apartments out there, it's just that you are competing with half the city for them. My apartment is a godsend - 1250/month, 2 bedroom, parking, fireplace, and on 15th Ave E. However, I know for a fact that sweet baby jesus was looking down on us. Our landlord told us that we were the only people she even talked to - she just happened to answer the phone when my roommate called. I think that some of those Craigslist posters are just so inundated with phone calls that it's damn near impossible for them to call everyone back. Housing searches are getting more epic every day in this town.
I, for one, don't plan on leaving this apartment until I die. The end.
It's best to know someone. If you don't know someone, then it's best to bribe or offer sexual favors. If all that's below you, it's best to move to the Tri Cities.
We lived in a pretty nice, affordable 2 bedroom on the hill (Volunteer Park neighborhood) for 2 years before deciding to downsize to save money. We searched half-heartedly for two weeks, then stumbled onto one fresh on the market, going for $300 less a month than the 2 bedroom apartment, $200 pet fee, rooftop deck, and only 1/2 a mile south on the same street. We grabbed it, then helped our friends get the apartment directly below ours.
They are out there, you just need to walk the neighborhoods looking for "for rent" signs and be ready to fill out the applications that day. With so many places turning condo (including our dear 2 bedroom apartment, announced a week before we gave notice that we were moving out), the units available are not available for long.
Good luck!
~Wesaturtle
You can find better prices if you are willing to compromise on location or size. The other thing to understand is that the first person to view an apartment around here typically takes it. The good ones are listed just once and on the market for just 1 day.
So that gives you about 1 hour to reply to a craigslist posting. Stale posts are sometimes not worth the time to call about. Make sure you are the first person to view the apartment, and that if it's a keeper you are ready to say "yes" on the spot.
After being second-to-arrive four times, my girlfriend asked a rather nice manager if there were unshown apartments. That netted her a nice one.
I also just finished a search. I found that most craigslist posts come online around 10am or 5pm. So starting hitting reload around then.
Good luck,
-Ben
I created a RSS feed at work that I checked every 10 minutes or so - I've been gone for a couple years, rent has gone up 20%, so my rent expectations got cranked up along with it. (The shithole 2bds that people wanted 1500 for were amazing!)
I found a place, a condo conversion being rented out, weirdly enough. Our landlord seems pretty green (what's that shower really doing?), but hey, it's got parking and w/d.
We were the first people who saw it. I missed other places by being 4 hours late.
I curse my friend who has a 2bd 1100$ unit on 12th, no rent increases in 4 years. His landlord must not read the paper.
I feel for ya man. I live in the watermarke right now. Man it's noisy while they're working but still okay. They're still offering cash to all residents who are left to get out haha.
We're all looking for places who have similar amenities and I like you have two cats, so finding a place that has a washer and dryer in the unit has been a real challenge. What a pain in the butt.
runamonk@moirai.net