Apartment Hunting Trip = Success!

This past weekend my dad, my boyfriend, and I went on an apartment hunting trip to Las Vegas. We woke up freakishly early in the morning (4:30 a.m., which by the way, is 2:30 a.m. Vegas time) to get ready to go the airport. We got to Vegas sometime around 8:00/8:30 Vegas time. My uncle picked us up from the airport and then took us to his work. From there, we took his car so that we could go driving around town looking at apartments all day. But first, we stopped on campus so that Erik and my dad could see what the place looks like and to also meet my grad advisor, Libby. And then the apartment visiting began.

Apartment #1: Fairly close to campus. Decent apartment, but nothing special. But... rent was out of our price range. So the lady sent us to a sister property nearby that would have lower prices.

Apartment #2: Still not that far from campus. Really nice looking apartment. But... lady #1 lied, the rent here was way higher and definitely out of our price range.

Apartment #3: Finally, something with rent that we could afford. A bit farther from campus than the last two, but a straight shot down one road, at least. Not the greatest looking neighborhood, but not too horrible (granted, it was daytime). The model apartment seemed fairly nice. But then we noticed that the bathroom sink had sewage backed up in it. Nom nom nom... Do all the apartments do that? But the guy here also told us that utility prices were pretty high here.

Apartment #4: Very nice looking complex. I really, really liked the floorplan of this one. But there really wasn't much in the area. We'd have to drive a bit to get to stores for necessities. Higher rent range, but still affordable, and with lower utility costs.

Apartment #5: Once again, a very nice looking complex. Decent floorplans with a great amount of closets/storage space. This neighborhood has a lot of shopping places nearby or just an exit or so away. So, quite convenient. Also in the higher rent range, but with decent utility costs.

In the end, and after going back and forth a lot (Saturday was definitely a roller coaster ride of emotions during our decision-making process) we made a decision. Once we calculated it out (including utilities and such), Apartment #3 was actually just as expensive as #4 and #5, and we didn't like it much. So, having eliminated #3, our choice was down to two places, and ultimately we chose Apartment #5. It was the nicest looking place and had the best location for the aparments within our price range. We'll still have some stuff to figure out as far as transportation, but I think this is a nice start.

Now I just wanna make a chart with all of our furniture and start figuring out where it should all go. Here's the floorplan, by the way. The only real trouble will be trying to figure out if we want to combine the office and the dining room, or to squeeze the dining stuff into the living room, and have the "dining room" be the office. We'll see...

Floorplan: Courtesy of the apartment complex website, which I'm not posting for privacy reasons.