Determining Your Apartment's Amenities

After you decide your location, you can begin to make a list of what amenities your ideal apartment will offer. The following list is comprised of questions and tips you should consider when making your own comprehensive list. After you have your list organized, you can see which rental listings are available in your chosen area.

• How many people will be living in your apartment? How many bedrooms and bathrooms will you require?
• How big does your kitchen need to be? Is an efficiency kitchen sufficient for you cooking and dining needs?
• Will you need any rooms besides bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and a living room? How big of a living room will you need?
• How much storage stuff do you own? Apartments can sometimes be inconveniently short on storage space. Be sure to check to see if the apartment building offers onsite storage lockers.
• How many cars do you have and will you require onsite parking?
• What kinds of pets do you have? Some apartment buildings have very strict pet policies; some allow cats, some dogs, some both and there are even some size limitations on dogs and breeds that are prohibited.
• What kind of outdoor areas are you looking for? Is a deck, patio, yard or pool area on your list?
• Will you want to have such communal amenities such as an exercise center, a business center, and a pool and barbeque area for recreation?
• Do you, a family member or roommate have disabilities? Will you need wheelchair accessibility? Wide doorways, accessible bathing and toilet facilities and lower counter heights are all concerns for people with disabilities.

Apartment Needs versus Apartment Wants

After you compose your list of areas and amenities, prioritize all of your options and make sure you can come up with an acceptable balance that will meet your budget. You will probably, as tends to happen in life, need to make some compromises and decisions.

Be sure to determine which amenities you absolutely need and which are not all that necessary for your new apartment. In our next article, we'll help you Calculate your Apartment Budget.