Discover the secret to landing a terrific place

C.T1
CO THE D ETR OI T J EWIS H NE W S

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN STAFF WRITER

inding a place to live in metro
Detroit is not easy — or it is. It
depends on where you'd like to
live, when you must move, how
much you can afford to spend
and perhaps most of all, who
you know.
Landing a terrific apartment
or flat in one of the trendier sub-
urbs (Royal Oak Berkley, Birm-
ingham and increasingly
"Fashionable" Ferndale) takes
luck. You can find a place you love, but
chances are, you'll be accompanied by
dozens of others who share the same strong
emotion — and who miraculously get there
before you.
First, project a budget, with a ceiling
amount you can spend on rent. If you want
to live alone, know that you'll be spending
considerably more — rent for one-bedroom
apartments usually falls about $100 un-
der the cost of a two-bedroom.

while throwing a little flexibility into the search.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL UPPITT

Alone, you can get away with spending a week. Hey, I moved away from home to
$400 on rent in far-out (read: distant lo- establish my own rules, not to get a whole
cation) suburbs for a not-so-new, few- new set.
Next step: Ask around.
amenities-if-any place. Or an older, spare
Jennifer Zalenko, 26, spent two days dri-
pad in a trendy enclave.
Roughly $500-$600 is a safe bet for a ving around Birmingham and Royal Oak
charming older flat or a relatively new, with her mother, looking at apartments.
small apartment with some utilities in- She wanted central air, dishwasher,
garbage disposal; she ended
cluded.
Having moved home in No- Jennifer Zalenko stumbled up with a Royal Oak two-bed-
upon what became her
room with no amenities.
vember, I aimed for a move-
Royal Oak apartment.
By responding to a news-
out-of-the-parents' date
around May 1 and began look- No amenities, lots of style. paper ad, Jennifer found a
management company that
ing in late March. First, I
looked in the Sunday classifieds of the De- owns several properties. "I asked if they
troit News and Free Press, the Observ- had other places that fit my description
er /Eccentric, the Mirror and the Royal better — it turns out they had one that
Oak Tribune newspapers. Called a few hadn't gotten listed yet. So I was one of the
ads, left name and number, got minimal first people to see it."
She suggests checking local newspapers,
_calls back.
One place in Royal Oak sounded fan- not major metropolitan dailies. "Check
tastic, but the landlord imposed a rule of work bulletin boards; if you have e-mail,
no sleepover guests more than one night look on the Internet for listings. Talk to

friends, let people know you're looking."
For two years, a woman I work with
lived in a Ferndale flat, near Nine Mile and
Woodward. She raved about the terrific
landlord, so I called. He had no vacant
properties.
A number of services that promise to
help you find that special someplace are
available, but not really a wise investment.
I sought out Apartment Search (which my
mother kept nudging me to call) and
Rental Professionals.
An Apartment Search professional
plugs into a computer your wish list of
specifications — location, amenities, in-
cluded utilities — and comes up with a list
of possibilities. You pay nothing. What's
the catch? The landlord pays to list with
them.
And that's exactly the problem. Since
the apartment lister has to show the mon-
ey, only nicer complexes are going to sign
on. And if you're looking for a flat