Most renters choose apartments with their hearts, not their heads.
Rapturous over a sunny exposure or a nice pool, they put aside the analytical skills that guide the rest of their lives.
The result? Virtually every renter can relate a horror story or two about something he or she should have checked out before signing a lease, but didn’t. It might have been that shower-head trickle that passed for water pressure. Or the tiny remnants of infestation beneath the kitchen sink. Or the flimsy, drafty windows that served as a welcome mat for break-in artists.
All went unnoticed, until the renters were locked into a lease. And that’s the thing about renting mistakes. While many other gaffes can be put behind you by paying a traffic ticket or voicing an apology, errors in apartment selection often hurt for a full 12-month lease cycle.
With that in mind, Renters Guide urges prospective renters to pause before signing that lease. Let this list of a dozen of the top blunders when choosing apartments be your guide to making the process as goof-proof as possible.
“A lot of rental sites, like SpringStreet.com or Apartments.com, allow you to sort by amenities,” Matre said. “So if your most important amenity is a hot tub, you can immediately eliminate all buildings that don’t have them.”
Those include “things like where the apartment is located on the property, how often the garbage is picked up, how the community looks,” said Kimberly Wilson, assistant property manager of Bristol Club Apartments, a 420-unit, 13-year-old Downers Grove community.
“Everyone wants to look at amenities. But they should concentrate more on what life will be like once they live there.”
That’s all the more important given the current high prices of gas, and the fact more and more properties are charging renters for water.
Dan Sawusch, president of Des Plaines-based Citadel Management, which manages Woodfield Gardens in Rolling Meadows and Hinsdale Lake Terrace in Hinsdale, said whether or not utilities are included in rent can make a huge difference. “There’s the a la carte menu mentality versus the seven-course menu mentality,” he said. “Most people don’t want to order from the a la carte menu (when renting). People don’t pay attention to the costs some properties charge. But if you don’t look for those costs, they’ll come back to haunt you.”
Matre, of Sherman & Sons, agrees. “You need to go back and observe on your own,” he said. “And you might want to go back on a Saturday to see how the amenities are used.”
Take it from Mary Herrold, marketing director for Chicago’s Bayshore Management, with seven Chicago-area properties. Herrold once made the mistake herself as a prospective renter, and endured a year’s worth of dribbling showers in a building with woefully low water pressure.
That’s why she now turns on the faucets when touring prospective renters around Bayshore properties, to show them there are no problems with water pressure.
“Make sure you have water when you need it,” she said. “There’s nothing a building can do about (poor water pressure), so you’re basically stuck with it.”
Be especially wary of windows in buildings constructed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she added. Some buildings of that vintage were fitted with then-popular windows that slid open horizontally and were cheaply constructed. “They’re notoriously bad in letting in drafts, and they’re easy to break in; just lift and go,” Herrold said.
“Under the contract you’re about to sign, understand the extent of the modifications you can make to the apartment, to customize it to your needs,” Sawusch said. “If you go way off the norm, we’ve got to return it to the standard, and you’ll pay for that.”
This mistake often comes back to haunt renters when they’re transferred or buy a home. “They’re shocked when they find out the cost involved,” to break the lease, Wilson said, adding that typical buy-out clauses demand 30 days’ notice and levy a fee equal to two months’ rent.
About 90 percent of grievances result from misunderstandings over lease provisions, such as buy-out clauses, Matre estimates. He urges renters to make sure that before they sign, they review a copy of the lease agreement and have management explain any clauses that aren’t clear. “There’s a duty on both sides,” he said, to make sure both parties understand the lease.
