Finding a new place to live isn’t like deciding what you’re going to eat for dinner — it’s a process that requires your undivided attention. More specifically, you want to take great care to make sure that your new place is in an area that you’re happy with, offers all of the amenities you want, and includes all of your necessary features. Failing to these areas the attention they respectively deserve will surely leave you with a place you’re unsatisfied with. 

Therefore, to make sure you only end up with a place you’re completely satisfied with, we put together guidelines for you to follow down below. 

Location

What are your interests? Do you like eating out a lot? Do you like going for walks in the park? Do you have a dog that needs constant walking throughout the day? Your answers to these types of questions should largely dictate the kind of area you move to. If you move to somewhere that doesn’t accommodate your interests, you’re likely to just end up getting bored weeks after making the move. Then, you’re stuck in a place you don’t like, potentially causing you to move again prematurely and drain your bank account even further.

To avoid this, be sure to thoroughly check out the immediate area surrounding any places you’re considering. Set aside an afternoon — or even a whole day — to see what’s available in the area. If you don’t know where to start, you can ask your friends to see if they have any suggestions. Or, you can ask your real estate agent about any standout features of the area (if you’re using a real estate agent, that is). 

If you’re not using a real estate agent and your friends have no suggestions for you, then a simple search on Google ought to do the trick. Simply search “your area + things to do.” Of course, if it’s not a hassle to get to the area from where you currently live, you can simply go exploring yourself without any agenda. This is also a great way to find lesser-known standout features, like hole-in-the-wall bars or delicious restaurants. 

Amenities

Amenities are basically any “nice-to-haves” that exist in an apartment or home. They’re often more associated with apartments, however, and include things like swimming pools, gyms, theater rooms, party rooms, tennis courts, and all sorts of other things. While amenities may not be essential to being able to enjoy a place, they can substantially improve your overall experience of living somewhere. 

For example, in an apartment with a swimming pool, you can start every day with a refreshing dip. Or, if you have access to a fitness room, you take advantage of mid-day workouts. In this sense, amenities can also be a great way to significantly reduce your monthly subscription costs for things like gyms. Whereas you might have to pay upwards of several hundred dollars to maintain a gym membership, with a gym in your apartment, you don’t have to pay anything.

Although it should be noted that amenities are often accounted for in your monthly rent cost. This means that the more amenities exist inside of your building, the more you will likely end up paying in rent. Regardless, all things considered, paying extra for amenities in your rent is still cheaper in the long run than if you were to pay for those same services regularly on a monthly basis. 

In some cases, you can even rely on your building to provide moving services in Greeley. This eliminates much of the stress related to relocating, as you don’t have to do any of your own research — you can simply rely on your new building to provide movers in Greeley instead. Plus, any building-associated moving company in Greeley is sure to be more trustworthy than any of your standard, run-of-the-mill relocating companies. 

Features

More important than amenities are the actual features inside of your new home. You should take some time to come up with all of the features you want to speed up your search and be able to more quickly determine if a place is right for you. Examples of features include dishwashers, laundry machines, offices, and other bedrooms.

Any trustworthy home listing will clearly list its features. If you see a listing for a place that does not list the features it has, ignore that listing altogether. However, be sure to verify during your viewings what features are available, as listings can sometimes be outdated — or even misleading. 

What features exist is perhaps the most important factor in deciding whether not a place is right for you. This is especially true if you or anyone relocating with you requires extra forms of accommodation. For example, if you have limited mobility and aren’t able to transport yourself up flights of stairs, then you’re obviously not going to want a place with a lot of stairs. Or, if you’re really set on a place with stairs, then you’re going to want to make sure that you can install support equipment around the place. 

The quickest way to find a place that has all of the features you require is to create a list with all the required features and give it to your real estate agent. With your list in hand, your real estate agent can then get to work finding all of the available places in your area that offer your requested features. Even if you’re not using a real estate agent, with a list of must-haves in hand, you can more quickly filter places you find online. 

Takeaway

To ensure that you end up with a new place that meets all of your needs and desires, it’s necessary to follow the guidelines outlined above. Before committing to any new place and signing on the dotted line, you should take great care to make sure that you’re happy with the surrounding area, provided amenities, and included features. Simply doing these three things will drastically improve your chances of settling on a place you’ll surely love for years to come.