Throughout the month of March and April of this year, I was in the midst of a mad hunt for an apartment in the D.C. area. To say the least, I didn't feel I was prepared to take on the DMV housing market. Two years ago, I moved into an apartment at UVA in Charlottesville, VA. In that situation, I wasn't paying for the rent, my location options were very limited, and I knew I wanted to live with a friend who was already settled in a nice, new place close to campus. Easy peasy. This past year, I lived at home with my family. Even more easy peasy. Suddenly, this Spring, I found myself searching Zillow, Apartments.com, and Craigslist, slightly panicking while also very excited because there were so many options...and so many questions to ask myself: D.C. or Arlington? Should I really spend 30% of my monthly income [before taxes] on living expenses [spoiler alert: no]? Apartment, townhome, or house? Studio or one-bedroom?

I slowly but surely answered all those questions and more, finally found a place to live with my boyfriend, Taylor, in the Ballston, Arlington area, and learned a lot throughout the process. Hopefully these five tips will help you in your search, whether in the D.C. area or not!

Location - If you don't remember anything else from this post, remember this piece that we learned fairly far down the road. Location is the one thing to nail down as definite criteria. Everything else should vary around that. We knew location was important, but weren't specific enough. Towards the beginning of our search, we looked at places all over the D.C. and Arlington [one mile outside D.C.] area. We found spots close to the metro and further away in more residential neighborhoods. Prices, amenities and square footage varied widely and we couldn't figure out how to narrow down our options. Therefore, I visited a few and we kept saying to ourselves, "This place is nice, I like everything about it...except the location isn't ideal." Make it easier on yourself and create an invariant center for your decision making process. We chose to be in the Ballston or Clarendon area [where most other young professionals live in Arlington] and within walking distance to a metro station. It was also important for us to be outside of D.C. itself because of commute time and parking.

• Don't live in D.C. if you don't work there. Connecting roads in and out of the city are always clogged during commuting times. Taylor and I will both be working in Virginia, and living in D.C. vs. Arlington would have added 20-45 minutes to our commutes, depending on where in the city we were. 
• I originally thought taxes might be an issue in the city, but after some research I realized that unless you're making some insane amount of money just out of college, the difference in income tax rates should not be the motivating factor in your decision as the actual difference will be tiny. 
• Parking was a problem in D.C. [as it probably is in most big cities], because most apartments didn't offer a guaranteed parking space. You would just have to find street parking wherever you could. 
• Deciding on two neighborhoods in Virginia cut down our choices dramatically and we could finally choose our favorites to see in person.

Visit as many places as you can - This obviously depends on your situation. I know people sometimes have to make an apartment decision from across the country [or world] and hope for the best when they move to a new city to start a new job. But if you have the opportunity, visiting your apartments of interest and meeting the landlord are both extremely helpful in getting a feel for the environment in which you will be spending most of your time. This seems obvious, but it's not so easy to make the effort to schedule a visit and see the place after the first four or five tours don't work out. Don't give up and base a decision off pictures online! You'll find a location-building-landlord combo that you can work with.

You're renting, not buying - Don't fret the small things like hardwood floors, a balcony, or granite counter tops. Invest in these amenities when you buy a house of your own. Which relays nicely into my next topic...

Budget - This is a very personal decision to make, but one thing I know is that the more I thought about how much in total I would be spending per year on housing, and the more I considered what I really needed in a home, the more my upper budget limit dropped. At first, the professional pictures of freshly renovated or brand new buildings will catch your eye. But when you realize that the higher price of these places means you're paying for granite counters, concierge service, new hardwood floors, a small gym you probably won't use [because CrossFit is better anyway :)], a pool you won't swim in, and other unnecessary amenities, you start to wonder where that extra money could go instead. Travel more! Try activities around this new city you have yet to explore! There are so many possibilities. Just some food for thought...

Read the entire lease before you sign - Yes, it's boring. Yes, it's long. But it's so important to avoiding frustration and stress down the road. You need to know about the surprise mold disclosure on page 14. You need to recognize the lack of documentation of the promised renovations. Simple stuff...just put in the time now and you will have a much more pleasant landlord-tenant relationship down the road.

That's it for now! Hope you found some of this information useful and I'll see you back here soon!