Upon arrival in the US, everyone must go through the potentially time consuming and the highly frustrating task of finding a place to live in LA. Having Arrived in Los Angeles 6 weeks ago, I have recently moved into a place and want to share my experience and advise on the best methods for finding a place to live in LA:
#1 – Establish what you want
Before starting to search for a place to rent it is important to first establish exactly what you are looking for. Are you looking for a room in a shared house or a one person studio? Which locations would you like to be in? What type of lease of you want to have? For example, I was very clear that I wanted to live in a shared house with at least 3 or 4 that was on a months by month lease, I also knew that I wanted to be in West LA.
#2 – Budgeting, be realistic
Establishing a financial budget is important so that you can filter down your search to a more specific criteria. When I arrived in L.A, I was a little naive to the cost of renting and assumed that I could find somewhere in West L.A for under $800 per month. However from my experience this is extremely difficult and it would perhaps it would have been beneficial to set a more realistic budget.
#3 – Craigslist
Craigslist is a great site for finding a place to live in LA, especially for rooms in shared houses. However there are defiantly a few things to look out for as there are many scams etc. Rule no.1, if its too good to be true then it most likely is too good to be true. I would also recommend filtering your search for advertising that include images and a detailed description of the room.
#4 – Facebook Groups
A method that I found extremely useful was LA housing Facebook groups. Groups such as Los Angeles Apartments are a great way to see posting of available rooms and also give you the opportunity to post directly on the group can be really helpful when you are finding a place to live in LA. Thing other great thing about Facebook groups is that they give you the chance to view your potential house mates profiles and gain a slight insight into if you think you would be suited to one another!
#5 – Viewings
Once you have concerted a few place that ticked all of the boxes, they are likely to ask you to come and view the place. My advise would be to go to as many viewings as possible, you have nothing to lose. Even if that viewing doesn’t come to anything, you may be introduced to people that know of other places etc.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, I was fortunate to have a friend that I could stay with while I was finding a place to live in LA, with gave me a little time to search for the best place possible. If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be to not necessarily rush into the first place you see, but to give yourself a little time to properly search around for the best place for you! I was close to moving into a place the first week that I arrived, but instead kept looking around and merged to find an awesome pace in Venice!
