I really want to call Zora and ask her if the landlady approved of having 5, potentially 4 people renting the apartment Zora found.
We’re not taking the 2k a month apartment after all, since Zora found something that is slightly more run-down in the kitchen, but $700 cheaper and no broker fee.
The only problem is that the landlady had to talk with her husband about being willing to rent to 5 people. The other thing is that there is no rent control — which considering that since the house-buying market is slumping, it means that rents will be taking a hike. Very unpleasant.
I’m not sure how much to poke Roza about it. After all, she has her own matters to attend to, and I feel vaguely guilty about her doing all the legwork — but then I’m not in the area. It’s at this point that I almost wish that I had taken up my parents on their offer to find me an apartment in Boston and just jump-start the search there.
In the end, when looking at apartments in such a housing climate, it may be worth it to get a more expensive apartment with rent control than a cheaper one without — depending on how long you plan to live there.
Personally, I don’t want to move again once we get to Boston unless it’s to a house that I bought, so if I were living with life-minded people, then I “might” go for the 2k a month place. However, that 1k broker fee is seriously frightening.
I tried looking up broker fees and I’m not sure that 50% of a month’s rent is typical, since I saw some people commenting on 12% broker fees for their apartment.
Anyways, we’ll see.
