Looking for an apartment can be frustrating. Here's what I learned while searching.
Looking for an apartment can be stressful and frustrating. Balancing budget with quality, location and amenities is a tall task. I had to take on this challenge when I learned I’d spend the summer working for the Democrat and Chronicle.
I found my place through FurnishedFinder, a website that offers short-term, furnished rentals primarily for traveling nurses. Unfortunately, my rent exceeds the suggested 30% of my income. I went with it because the apartment supply I targeted was incredibly small for a 2.5-month lease with furniture.
After a few weeks of reporting about code enforcement and housing quality in Rochester, I wondered what my apartment search might look like for tenants looking for a place now. I wanted to understand how a renter might use online tools, including the city-run BuildingBlocks site that lists code compliance information on rental properties, to inform their decision about where to live.
I started by sifting through apartment listings on several sites, including Apartment Guide, which I used most throughout my search. The site had several places that fit my search, mostly duplexes or studios in larger homes or apartment complexes. The apartments I narrowed down to were all between $900 and $1,300 a month — about 30% of my monthly income on the lower end.
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My first order of business for each place was to look up any outstanding code violations the property or its owner had. One apartment, part of a duplex in the Park Avenue neighborhood, had more than a dozen open violations and a property score of 72.
I had heard some complaints from tenants I had previously interviewed about the realtor who manages the property, and I decided to see if he’d been mentioned in online renter circles. Naturally, I took to Reddit, where I searched his name on r/Rochester. On there, many ex-tenants posted about the landlord’s unwillingness to make repairs, some describing renting from him a “nightmare.”
As much as I was satisfied with the home’s location and the photos in the listing, I decided to rule the apartment out. I did not want to consider a lease with a potentially unresponsive or irresponsible landlord.
Another apartment I was interested in was a one-bedroom, one-bath unit near Pearl-Meigs-Monroe that costs $1,150 a month. A quick search on BuildingBlocks told me it was in a 12-unit apartment building with 31 violations, an expired Certificate of Occupancy and a sub-50 score.
Though the site didn’t specify whether the unit had violations, the issues throughout the property clarified that the building owner wasn’t keeping up with codes and building maintenance.
The third and final property that caught my attention was a studio in a South Avenue complex for just over $1,000 monthly. It had a few downsides: Its square footage was considerably smaller than the previous two units at around 560, and it had aging fixtures and carpets. But I’m familiar with the building and neighborhood, and the rent was well within my range, so it seemed to be a good fit.
No outstanding violations had earned the property a 100 score on BuildingBlocks and solid scores for the property owner and manager. My search yielded no glaring red flags on this unit and landlord, and I’d likely go with the studio as a place to stay for the following year.
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To be sure, the selection of up-to-code, affordable apartments within my budget was fairly narrow. If I wanted to cut the cost further, I would have likely sought roommates to share a two-bedroom apartment.
Going on in-person tours and seeing apartments of interest close up would be an excellent way to check the units' quality myself, combined with a search for unresolved violations online.
Though it can be difficult to tell from the start what you're getting into by signing a lease, researching the property and landlord's code compliance status can offer valuable insight.
— Christina Chkarboul is a summer intern at the Democrat and Chronicle and a student journalist at USC, where she focuses on Earth science, global studies and journalism. Contact her at [email protected] with story tips related to code enforcement.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Apartments in Rochester NY: Here's what I learned in my search
