Curiousity killed the landord?

[junesrose.livejournal.com]

Hello all,

I have a question, an informal poll of sorts.

I'm at the beginning stages of remodeling my mother's house (she's not living there anymore). It's a two family home. The downstairs apt right now is a one bedroom.

Here's where your sage wisdom/expertise comes in:

I have the ability of making this space a nice, big, one bedroom apartment with a huge eat-in kitchen, large living room and bedroom; or I can take that "extra" room (the kitchen, believe it or not) and turn it into a second bedroom, and make a smaller galley-like kitchen, open to a common room/living room area, which, overall, would not be that big.

I know that it's difficult to visualize, and ultimately, it's my decision, but I"m just looking for what YOU ALL would be looking for in an apartment as a single renter, or with one other roommate.

As a single renter, is the kitchen important to you? The bigger the better? I know that kitchens in homes are massive these days, but do you all look for that in apartments too? Do you young'uns spend time in the kitchen like us old folk?

And, if you were to move in with someone else (have a roomate), how important is a larger kitchen for you? Do you consider the size of the living room/common space or are the bedrooms more important when sharing an apartment (these two bedrooms would be a good size).

Ok, I'm being redundant on both questions, just humor me.....


Also, in general, how important are laundry facilities on-site (ok, I think I know the answer to this one, but I'm throwing it out there as well...)??

Thanks in advance!

:D

~@~@~@~

ADDENDUM-DUM

Er... I know I should be asking a realtor this question, and I have fair idea, but what's the going rate these days for a large one bedroom apt close (VERY CLOSE) to Davis sq?????

Comments

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

I've usually had more than one roommate, but I have a strong opinion on laundry which wouldn't vary: I use it as an initial filter, because, at least for the kinds of apartments I have lived in, the condition of the laundry is the best single proxy for everything else I care about.

I wouldn't look at a place with no laundry or with coin-op. Laundry in the basement would make me suspicious and I'd need a lot to balance it out, like the basement being really clean and not accessible to anyone I didn't trust. Restrictions on the hours I could use the laundry (e.g. because of bad noise or vibration isolation) would be another major red flag as to both the condition of the building and the personality of the landlord.

If there's a good location in the unit (e.g. a dryer vent is provided in a logical place), permission to install my own is about as good as laundry already in the unit, though. That's how it was where I live now -- I got a cheap dryer off Craigslist.

My most/only useful piece of advice might be this: If you choose to provide laundry machines, make sure they are as clean and operational-looking as possible when you show the apartment.