I signed on my first place today and I met my new roommate, another lieutenant going through school with me. We have mutual friends and she seems really nice. Her name is Talya and she was enlisted for 8 years before this, is fluent in Chinese, and studied environmental engineering at Harvard.
I did a lot of research on places and I visited a bunch of them. A bunch of them. Basically all I did for the past four days. Maybe five days.
I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like a dweeb most of the time. "What is the most important thing to you in an apartment?" Deer-in-the-headlights look. "I don't know!!!!!!" Later, I decided that, besides a safe area, I would prefer a shower bar that doubles as a pull-up bar.
I was pretty bummed most of the time looking around. Nothing felt like "home." Every apartment was dull and boring. I mean, of course they were. They were vacant! And all white walls and boring khaki carpet. Bleh.
I really want to go to daily Mass, so naturally I want a place that's close enough to Dam Neck and to the churches. I would have to go to probably 3 churches a week to go to Mass every day so that throws another order into the equation. Didn't want to be out of the way of everything too. And Virginia Beach doesn't necessarily have the greatest crime rate ever so obviously security is a concern.
Let's see...how many places did I tour...12! That doesn't count the tons of places I drove through. I only started to feel sure that I'd find a decent home on Day 4 of the search. Talya called me on Day 2 and said she looked at a few places and went to apartmentratings.com. Didn't even know about the site. It helped a ton. So I continued my research and made a giant spreadsheet with the following columns:
Bed/Bath
Square Footage
Rent
Application Fee
Admin Fee
Security Deposit
Washer/Dryer accomodations
Pet fees (was thinking about getting one...now isn't a good time though)
Which floor available (don't want 1st floor)
Specials
Distance to Dam Neck
Distance to St Gregory the Great (the church I'd go to for Mass in the morning before class)
Approval Ratings/# Reviews/Date of last review
Total $ I'd pay for my duration living there
It was also important to me that there was a good workout facility in the complex. That way I have more options for early morning or weekend workouts or if I'm sick of being on base.
The place we ended up going with was one of the first places where I walked into a vacant room and honestly thought to myself, "I can live here." It had by far the most impressive gym (I also took the "26" pieces of equipment in the ad as a sign). The grounds were pretty and quiet and the rooms used space well AND had a HUGE kitchen (compared to basically all other apartments). We are going to live in a 2 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment, which works cos the bathroom has two sinks :) I haven't seen a single other apartment with a double sink. At first I didn't like that we don't have a washer/dryer in the room. BUT, each building has 8 apartments and 1 washer/dryer downstairs. I checked it out on my tour and both were immaculate. I've never seen such clean equipment :) So that means I don't have to pay for the extra water and energy doing laundry in my room! Very happy about this but now I have to revert to Midshipman life where I was always scrambling for quarters. I'll figure it out.
I'm kinda bummed that pets aren't allowed in the community, but I checked the "companionship" need in the box by having a roommate. I also don't know a darn thing about taking care of a pet. But, I would have been nice to see people play with their dogs outside :(
This place is also close to Dam Neck AND all three churches. Actually, the best location for all four compared to all the other apartments. Lots of the apartments on apartmentratings.com got bad reviews. This place got 90% approval. I also checked police reports and there's significantly less crime here than in other places. :)
AND - this is great - on my spreadsheet, of ALL the options (living by myself/with a roommate/different room plans in different apartments) - this one was the cheapest! Cheaper than the places with smaller rooms and with crappy ratings. AND, not only was the 2 bedroom apartment already cheaper than in other complexes, we got 1 month free rent and had our application fee waived. I also get a $100 VISA Debit card from Rent.com. :D So, with cheap-ish rent and saving a ton on utilities, I'm probably going to be able to bank 50% of my BAH. At least!! Already it's like 2/3!!!
Talya saw the place for the first time today and even told me when she drove it she felt like this was it.
Rosebud.
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