Friday, May 14, 2010

Apartment Search!!!

So its getting closer and closer to our moving date and I have been on the search for a nice apartment like a MAD woman! I finally found a place I love thats in our price range, and I filled out the application today! I'm praying that everything goes ok and we get approved! Please say a prayer for us cause this will lift soooo much stress off my shoulders! Plus as long as we pay a deposit they can hold the apartment until I make it out to VA, which means we will save some money on staying in a hotel once we get there! :) Keep your fingers crossed for us!♥

XOXO,

The Navy Wife

8 comments:

  1. I don't remember the circumstances under which you're moving to Virginia but if it's part of a PCS and the Navy is paying for it, they will also pay for 10 days of hotels on either end of the move (so in CA or in VA) and your husband can ask for house hunting leave (non chargeable leave) when he gets there so you can guys can look at apartments together.

    I don't know if you've seen the apartment you're looking at in person, but I would recommend not signing anything until you get out there and see it... we found out that the awesome two bedroom apartment we'd been so close to renting was actually a disgusting room with a mattress on the floor in a ghetto part of the city.

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  2. Ahhhhh if only it were that simple! Yes these are our pcs orders, but my husband is deployed right now and wont be back before I move. I have to move before he gets back so I can start school in august and try to find a job. Also they want him to take a legal class right after he comes home, so he wont be able to take his leave until mid or late september, which I am not willing to sit around and wait for! Plus we can't get the money up front for hotels and everything else so we have to pay for it all ourselves and then get reimbursed. Which, with my husband hitting port all the time is hard to do (cause he LOVES to spend all our money in port!)So right now I'm trying to save and find an apartment before hand. We have a friend who's stationed in virginia who is gonna check out the apartments for us since I can't make it out there ahead of time. So hopefully everything will work out and it will all be ok. But thanks for the advice!! I know its always better to be safe than sorry!

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  3. Ahhh, military things have a way of getting complicated...haha. Well, good luck and I hope it all works out! And I'm glad you have someone who can check out the apartments for you :)

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  4. Definitely be sure to look at the place and the area before you sign the lease. Hampton Roads is one of those areas where a place may seem super nice, but right over the fence you may not realize is a rough neighborhood. That is the case with our apartment. Our complex is one of the Nicer places on the Hampton side, and there has been several break-ins in the complex. And we're told this is the "safer" part... and we are sure paying for it.
    I know what ship your hubby must be on. It's the same as several as my friends.. just realized it after reading your Tiger Cruise post.. and it clicked.
    With the Ship going into the ship yards after deployment, you may want to look at this side of the water or you will have to fight with tunnel traffic every day. The reason we chose the Hampton side was because my husband's ship was in the yards. They just got out recently. But we are glad we chose this side because with the tunnel traffic it could have easily took him an hour and a half to get to work when it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes. Tunnel traffic into Hampton and Newport News is worse than the tunnel traffic going in to Norfolk.

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  5. thanks sespi and christina! well last night i found a website that rates apartment complexes and boy was I amazed! I literally checked like a million apartments (ok...maybe not literally..lol!) and everything in our price range came back with horrible reviews! I am terrified of moving to Va now and am at my wits end as what to do. I stayed up til 1:30 am searching and searching for a decent place we could afford and it simply does not exist!! :( The stories of robberies, murders, vehicles getting broken into, mold, cockroaches, and horrible maintenance and office staff literally made me have a nervous breakdown! All the places we can afford are dumps and I am scared shitless to live in the ghetto by myself while my husband is deployed! ohhh Lord at this point I'm so tempted to just get base housing. what do you ladies think? I am in serious need of help! I cant afford to visit Va before hand to check out places and after reading all those reviews I'm sure I wouldn't want to live in any one of the places we could afford. Is base housing the answer? thanks for listening and sorry for blabbing for so long! Lol!

    xoxo

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  6. p.s. sespi what is your blog url? i looked on your profile but it wasn't on there and i couldn't figure out how to find it so I could follow your blog...hmmm maybe im just retarded! lol!

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  7. Yikes, that's a tough situation. You are taking into account that your BAH will change when you get into Virginia, right? We don't currently live on base, and my husband says we will never live on base unless we are stationed in a super high cost of living area and have more than 2 kids.

    For what it's worth, the apartment we first lived in when we got to GA had some horrible reviews online about cockroaches, drug dealers, and loud neighbors, but it was actually a very nice apt complex that had changed management since that review. Since you're going to be by yourself for awhile though, you should err on the side of caution. A good way to check the safety of neighborhoods is to call the police department in the area and ask them. Just explain your situation and they should put you in contact with an officer who can help you figure out where you can live safely. But if you're going to end up spending all your BAH every month on your rent just to live in a safe neighborhood, you might as well live on base if the base housing is decent.

    Oh, and my blog is http://neverdidthink.wordpress.com. That might be why you couldn't find it on my profile ;)

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  8. thanks sespi! ya that was our biggest concern, we didnt wanna lose our bah...but hubby and I went over all our bills yesterday and we figured since it would cost us $1200-$1400 plus utilities for a decent apartment in a safer area, we might as well get base housing, considering bah for that area is only $1310. Plus theres the whole safety issue. I would feel much better about living on base. I was doing some research yesterday on lincoln military housing and since we dont have any kiddos yet we only qualify for the two bedroom houses, but both the communities in norfolk that offer 2 bedrooms aren't on the base, there just a few miles away tho. So im still kinda ify on that whole thing. but we already submitted our application so i need to call and check on all that! wish me luck!

    xoxo

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