Advice for finding a place in LA
So you're moving to LA. Good for you! It's sunny there, and New York is a sinking ship! And the rats will conquer all! Which doesn't really work with the whole sinking ship metaphor, but whatever I'm drunk on a plane.
After looking for a month I successfully got us a house. And I will tell you how to do it.
First of all, your budget doesn't really fucking matter regarding availability of places. But, I noticed there was a sweet spot between $1800-$2500 for 2-bedrooms in Silverlake.
We initially began looking with a budget of $2000 for a one to two bedroom.
One, was a New Orleans style building on Los Feliz boulevard. Our blue tooth head piece wearing realtor proudly told us that Andy Milenakis once shot his TV show there, and Gloria Estefan's son had an apartment in the complex. People in LA love to talk about the celebrities that live nearby! And when they don't have real celebrities they talk about Andy Mile-fucking-akis and you have to pretend you are so impressed.
Another was a duplex in Echo Park that the realtor never even bothered to show up to. We just wandered in and decided it was not for us and left.
We reevaluated. Instead of signing a five year lease on an office and a lease on an apartment we decided to up our home budget to $4000- $5000 and get something big enough for my boyfriend to work from.
So now you're thinking, ooh la la, $4000? The world is your oyster! I could practically demand people out of their homes with that.
First we found an amazing place. It was literally a place that an architect built for himself to work from. It was fantastic, but it was expensive. $5500, and it was way too big. But we were excited and we emailed the realtor that we would take it sight unseen. And then we waited.
Perhaps it is the laid back atmosphere of Los Angeles, or maybe she just had so much interest that she didn't need us, but this bitch blew us off.
And I was back to square one. And I was also back in New York. I tried to have a friend go look at places for me, but her schedule and the realtor's schedule never panned out. We lost a spectacular place in Elysian Heights, and then a great place in Franklin Hills that had a pool.
So now we returned the week before Christmas, I had found one Craigslist listing and we had a realtor line up some showings I'd found on themls.com. We were in okay shape.
The first one, a four br, 2 bath craftsman in Silver Lake. With a yard, and a fireplace. I'd emailed about it a week prior and couldn't arrange a time for my friend to go, but it was still on the market when we were there so we saw it.
And it was perfect, but it was the first one we saw. We turned in our application immediately and continued our search.
Next. we saw two miserable places in south Silver Lake. They were gross. One reeked so badly of cigarettes I had to go outside. The other had a shared laundry and driveway with another unit. These were $3300
Next we saw an awesome Spanish castle situation in Franklin Hills, it had a pool, and the layout rocked, but it was $5300. Which was too much.
Then we saw another Spanish guy in Franklin hills that we almost went for. But when asked about an additional deposit for a cat, a cat we don't even own yet, the landlord responded that with a cat the rent went up $500 a month. Which I don't think any cat could afford.
And we still hadn't heard back on the Craftsman.
The thing is in New York every ten minutes 100 new places in your price range with your specifications become available, and 30 seconds later they've all been rented, but that's okay because 100 more just went online. It is literally a race to turn in your application first.
In LA you cast a wide net, every place gets a few applicants and they base their decision on financials and personality. (But mostly financials.) Then they tell you if they chose you, ideally a couple of places you loved will do this and then you get to choose which one you liked. It's like College, but instead of grades it's credit score.
Still not having heard back from our Harvard we continued to look.
Then we saw an old Victorian in Beachwood Canyon that supposedly Charlie Chaplin had once bought for his mistress for $5000. But the layout again was batshit and it only had one bathroom, with a tiny tub and a shower that could barely clean your navel.
Then we saw a Victorian in Echo Park. What once may have been a nice family home had been lived in by a group of 20-something hobos. When we arrived the current tenant was smoking weed and playing video games, he told us we could walk around, and we did, tripping over beer bottles and garbage. All of the bedrooms had inflatable mattresses on the floor. It could have been the greatest place in the world, but I couldn't see through the haze of trash.
We had one day left and were lukewarm about the final places I had lined up. I sent a text to the realtor for the craftsman, reminding him how awesome we were and how much we wanted the place.
And then he called. And we got it!
So we cancelled all of our appointments for the next day and got drunk.
So what's my bottom line advice for finding a place in LA? Have good credit. If you don't have good credit, date someone who does.
Also, don't have a pet, or lie about your pet. That was one reason we got our place, even though the ad said they were open to pets. They were liars, we won out due to our lack of pets.
westsiderentals.com - these are the places that people don't want on craigslist, but are too cheap to hire a realtor for.
padmapper.com - everything is expired
People say that just walking around neighborhoods looking for "For Rent" signs is helpful, I think this is bullshit, but rock on if this works for you.
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