New to Phoenix area--question about renting differences

[daveyjones978]

Just wanted to add my .02, as a fairly new renter in PHX:

The rental tax was surprising to us, coming from NYC, but as someone else stated, it really isn't all that much. Several apartments offered Valet Waste, which is basically someone coming around and picking up your trash between 6 and 8pm. It's a nice luxury, but nothing essential. Most complexes have more than their fair share of trash and recycling bins throughout the complex. Many complexes will charge separately for water/sewer/trash. Ours is billed for the month prior, with the current month's rent invoice. (it shouldn't be more than 20 bucks for one person). Between our rent, taxes, and w/s/t we pay less than $820. That is also on the 1st floor - after living in walk up buildings for many years, we were happy to be on the first floor. Also, we needed hardwood floors and most upper units are only carpeted.

Please take reviews online with a grain of salt - like you said, you would never live anywhere if you depended on them 100%. As my SO says, usually the only time most people will write a review is if it's a bad one - so take that how you want.

Best bet - take a day or two, and basically hit up any complexes you see in the general area of his job. He'll want to probably be closer to work anyways, as most people choose to do. AM/PM rush hour is the pits here, so he'll appreciate the shorter commute. All of the young places to hang out are a short uber ride away regardless, and there are plenty of places that he'll find.

[hawkbiz]

I agree with most responses. I chose the 2nd floor apt and am happy I did. I don't want someone above me but your son may not care. A benefit of the 2nd floor may have been that I only had my heat on for less than 10 days this winter. Also, like you mentioned, disregard the online reviews for the most part. Come out and take a look because what you can't see from the websites is exactly where each complex is located.

[rrah]

We've returned from our trip. That rain you experienced a few days ago was what we brought with us--haha.

Son has narrowed it down to 5 places in Chandler and one in South Tempe. His final choice will depend upon availability in his time frame. We're about a week or so away from current renters giving notice so many of the complexes will have a better idea then.

One other item we found that was quite different for us was the availability of filtered water dispensers (25 cents/gallon) at the apartment complexes. I finally had to ask many of the complexes kept mentioning this as an amenity. We've only lived one place in the Midwest where the water did not taste good (too chlorinated) and that was long before our son was born. I realized water costs might be more expensive, but I had not thought about taste too much. Oh well.... I post that in case others locating to the area have similar questions. We had some tap water and thought it was fine. It just tasted different than our water and had a bit of a sweet taste to me.

The other thing I'll mention for any future readers. You get what you pay for in terms of amenities and general look and feel of the complexes. Sizes of apartments don't differ much based on price though. We looked at a few complexes priced in the lower/mid 700's. Both had really off smells in the models (one model actually reeked of cigarette smoke which was weird.) Once we looked at things in the upper 700's and 800's they were much nicer places for the most part.

One final "warning" for others in a similar position--some places will work with you if you don't have any credit and require an increased security deposit or higher income. Others will not let you rent without a co-signer if you have no prior credit-even with rental history. (Son has no credit score since he is debt free and getting a credit card as a college student is much more difficult in the past 6-7 years). Not all of them will be upfront about this. Ask the hard questions about this and demand honesty. A few places were "iffy" about this. When one leasing agent was completely honest with us about it, we greatly appreciated it as son might have wasted money trying to get into one of those apartments. This became our first question, and we politely left a few places for this reason. It helped us eliminate some places since we would prefer not to co-sign a lease for a self-sufficient and financially capable young adult child. Lots of "parenting" related reasons for that unrelated to my original post.

Great, quick visit and son is looking forward to his new adventure.