Moving & Relocation...

Bit of a serious thread. I need your help!

I am working on a website/app that aims at helping people who move to a new city or area find the "right" place for them. Think about it as matchmaking for rental properties.

I could really use your views on the experience of appartment/house hunting. If you have moved recently I'd especially like to hear from you: what were the things that frustrated you most during the whole process? Did you use Craigslist, rent.com, Trulia? What did you think of them?

Thanks!

SC

Aren't moving and relocation the same thing pretty much?

Hey everybody, now I closed that other thread you can bring your cool comments over to this one. Both move or relocate them, whichever.

It's gonna get so cool in here, I'll have to put on a sweater.

Well, you could start by enabling some kind of "entertainment in your area" and "food that will deliver to your home" search function. That would be neat.

Watmm charges 200 dollars an hour in fees for consultation with its ideaaneers, plus an administration fee per session of fifty bucks and a licencing charge to be negotiated for every idea taken on board.

  On 10/23/2014 at 7:46 PM, delet... said:

ideaaneers

Hey delet.. Sure no prob. You can even have 30% equity in my company and a seat on the advisory board.

But more than ideas really, I would like to hear about issues you've faced while trying to find a new place. In particular if that involved moving to a new city altogether.

I moved from Seattle to the bay area recently and it was really tough narrowing down options, because when you search on Craiglist etc you find a lot of listings but it is very hard to make sense of them without being familiar with the area. Anyway, that was my experience but it'd be great to have your views.

If your site could assess move-in costs (deposits, fees, first/last paid, etc) with various rental properties, I'd check it out. IME the "right" place is the one that costs the least amount of money to move into. :P

+ a list of burger joints in a 1 mile radius

+ bus stop access (something like walk score, which seems like a similar idea to yours)

  On 10/23/2014 at 4:22 AM, sojacalcium said:

I could really use your views on the experience of appartment/house hunting. If you have moved recently I'd especially like to hear from you: what were the things that frustrated you most during the whole process?

not sure if this applies to all cities, but when i moved from san francisco to los angeles, the most frustrating thing was not knowing about the neighborhoods- which parts are considered safe, affordable, desirable to live in etc. and mostly because areas in los angeles change on a dime (i.e. turn a corner and it's shit. turn another corner and it's very nice. go up further and it's even better, turn towards silverlake and you're in hipster heaven etc)

personally, i don't think i'd have gotten it (the attitude of the people, the speed of the city, the heat, the weird thing about no refrigerators in apartments etc.) unless i talked to someone i knew.

^ And that said, I actually prefer that people have to live in a city for a while to get to grips with the "good spots" before just waltzing in from another state and settling into where they think they'll fit in. Move to wherever was available (noob zones), look around for a few years, find a place that better suits you, etc. My neighborhood is currently having a douche renaissance and I suspect it's at least partly because this area has been marked as "highly desirable" on sites visible to out-of-towners, sites exactly like walkscore. A good neighborhood, IMO, is one with people who care about it and who are involved in it... there's about a dozen new expensive high-rise complexes being built around me at the moment, places that will have a constant high turnover rate as soon as the newcomers find even more desirable areas, and I really wish that wasn't the case. FWP.

  On 10/24/2014 at 2:09 AM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 10/23/2014 at 4:22 AM, sojacalcium said:

I could really use your views on the experience of appartment/house hunting. If you have moved recently I'd especially like to hear from you: what were the things that frustrated you most during the whole process?

 

not sure if this applies to all cities, but when i moved from san francisco to los angeles, the most frustrating thing was not knowing about the neighborhoods- which parts are considered safe, affordable, desirable to live in etc. and mostly because areas in los angeles change on a dime (i.e. turn a corner and it's shit. turn another corner and it's very nice. go up further and it's even better, turn towards silverlake and you're in hipster heaven etc)

 

personally, i don't think i'd have gotten it (the attitude of the people, the speed of the city, the heat, the weird thing about no refrigerators in apartments etc.) unless i talked to someone i knew.

 

Wait? WTF! Can you explain this?

  On 10/24/2014 at 2:21 AM, luke viia said:

^ And that said, I actually prefer that people have to live in a city for a while to get to grips with the "good spots" before just waltzing in from another state and settling into where they think they'll fit in.

i guess i kinda did that. i got a job before moving into the city, so my first apartment was technically my "let me scout to the town" place, and even though i loved it, it was very expensive because i had to get a place both close to work, and close to shopping etc.

the thing i was most scared about was "if" i'd be able to live in los angeles, because i know a lot of people that've come here and either left because they hated it or burned out. a girl i met about weeks after i moved here swore she loved it and was going to become a filmmaker. she moved out about 2(?) years ago and now claims hollywood is run by a satanic cult or something like that.

  On 10/24/2014 at 5:25 AM, Danny O Flannagin said:

 

  On 10/24/2014 at 2:09 AM, Nebraska said:

the weird thing about no refrigerators in apartments etc.) unless i talked to someone i knew.

 

Wait? WTF! Can you explain this?

 

in los angeles, most apartments don't have refrigerators. honestly, i still don't know what that's all about but a girl i met asked me why i'd even consider putting stuff like meat in the same fridge someone was putting their meat in (no fancy)

Thanks for the replies.

Luke: giving as much visibility to the move in costs is planned. Interesting you mention walkscore. Yes they are kind of a competitor but our approach is different. Will make sure to include a "luke viaa" search filter for burger joints.

  On 10/24/2014 at 2:09 AM, Nebraska said:

not sure if this applies to all cities, but when i moved from san francisco to los angeles, the most frustrating thing was not knowing about the neighborhoods- which parts are considered safe, affordable, desirable to live in etc.

That's one of the issues we are trying to solve. I'm sure you also observed that to be true in SF also. You can go from the Tenderloin to Pacific heights in one mile and the vibe changes completely. Same in Oakland/Berkeley.

Luke: that's an interesting issue. Thanks. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying me reminds me of Lonely Planet guides that shortlist restaurants or other points of interest. While their recommendations can be good, they can transform a local landmark into a tourist place. E.g: you go to this off the beaten path nasi goreng place in Indonesia and everyone there is a 30-something caucasian male with "the book".

Did I get more or less get your point?

That said, we don't want to rate places in absolute desirability terms. Also I think the notion of community strives if you are attached to a place. And it is easier to get attached to a place that corresponds to you, don't you think? So if we can help newcomers land in communities of people that share the same priorities (say, the love of the outdoors), then I think the influx of "noobs" can be beneficial to the neighborhood and to longer-term residents.

I agree with you that it is hard though to find the "right place" without having lived in the city for a while. What my wife and I did when we moved here (north of Oakland CA) is that we stayed in an airbnb for 2 weeks before signing the lease for our current house. That gave us a chance to walk around quite a bit and check out a lot of neighborhoods. That's not to say that I'm sure we'll stay here for 5 years, but the likelihood is higher than if we had picked a place just on consideration of price.

  On 10/24/2014 at 7:13 PM, sojacalcium said:

That's one of the issues we are trying to solve. I'm sure you also observed that to be true in SF also. You can go from the Tenderloin to Pacific heights in one mile and the vibe changes completely. Same in Oakland/Berkeley.

true. but i think i was going for how complex la is, because even within silverlake, you can find an area that isn't as desirable as another even though they're both basically considered "silverlake".... nahmean?

  On 10/24/2014 at 6:59 AM, Nebraska said:

a girl i met asked me why i'd even consider putting stuff like meat in the same fridge someone was putting their meat in (no fancy)

he gurl uhhh... can I put my meat in your fridge, yeah?

///

dunno moving around generally sucks imo. sucks less if you get a room via friends who know a vacant space.

///

moving to Berlin now with two friends, haven't even seen the place. but it's right next to the Spree river with a boat parking lot outside which seems kinda fun.

that's sounds more awesome than anywhere i can think of living on my budget in the US. Actually my budget would probably go a long way in that failing economy, but germany is cooler so my point stands.

  On 10/24/2014 at 6:59 AM, Nebraska said:

 

  On 10/24/2014 at 5:25 AM, Danny O Flannagin said:

 

  On 10/24/2014 at 2:09 AM, Nebraska said:

the weird thing about no refrigerators in apartments etc.) unless i talked to someone i knew.

 

Wait? WTF! Can you explain this?

 

 

in los angeles, most apartments don't have refrigerators. honestly, i still don't know what that's all about but a girl i met asked me why i'd even consider putting stuff like meat in the same fridge someone was putting their meat in (no fancy)

 

OH, i thought you meant refrigerators weren't allowed in some apartments, sort of like how some apartments don't want you to smoke