Miami Apartment Hunting Tips

Apart­ment hunt­ing in Mia­mi, FL, can be pret­ty ardu­ous, and it can take a while to find that per­fect place. Myself, I have a love-hate rela­tion­ship when it comes to apart­ment-hunt­ing in gen­er­al. It’s super thrilling as it means a fresh new place and some­where you can make a home. On the oth­er hand, it might be a lit­tle over­whelm­ing to find your dream apartment. So, in this arti­cle, we’ve got you cov­ered with some hunt­ing tips to help you find your dream apartment.

Let’s get started!

1- Consider Where You Want To Live

Mia­mi is one of the nation’s ten most expen­sive rental mar­kets, and the city’s neigh­bor­hoods are always in high demand. If you’re look­ing for a high-end spot where you can enjoy the city’s renowned cul­tur­al attrac­tions and leg­endary nightlife, focus your search on the fol­low­ing hotspots.

• Down­town Miami
• South Beach
• Brick­ell
• Coconut Grove

Miami’s rental mar­ket can be cost­ly, but the city is still home to sev­er­al eco­nom­ic neigh­bor­hoods. Below you’ll find some of Miami’s best qui­et sub­urbs and up-and-com­ing areas, where you will find many rentals priced on the low­er end of the market:

• Lit­tle Haiti
• North Beach
• Mia­mi Shores
• Lit­tle Havana

Once you nar­rowed down where you’re look­ing to set­tle, next comes the apart­ment hunt­ing processes. 

2- Start The Hunt!

We came now to the excit­ing part…actually start­ing the apart­ment hunt!  Long gone were the days when apart­ment hunters had to pre­cise­ly scan the news­pa­per clas­si­fieds to find a place to live. Nowa­days, any renter can eas­i­ly access hun­dreds of apart­ment list­ings through rental search web­sites and apps. Frankly, the options can be over­whelm­ing. I’d say about 80% of places are list­ed on Zumper, so that should be your first point of call. Zumper is known for its easy-to-digest rental retail details and deep knowl­edge of local rental markets.  On Zumper, you can apply online and sub­mit dig­i­tal rental appli­ca­tions and cred­it reports with Zumper’s screen­ing ser­vice, pow­ered by Tran­sUnion™. Zumper’s inven­to­ry is updat­ed in real-time, so you’ll always see new rentals on Zumper first with real-time alerts. You will have the option to fil­ter by loca­tion, price range, bed­room count, pet-friend­ly, or ameni­ty and set an alert to get noti­fi­ca­tions when a new list­ing is posted. Since neigh­bor­hood dif­fer­ences are dif­fi­cult to dis­cern, espe­cial­ly if you are non-locals, Zumper shows its local exper­tise in the search results, too. Map view on Zumper allows you to select indi­vid­ual neigh­bor­hoods and clear­ly shows list­ing loca­tions. That’s why I would sug­gest the key web­site to look at to be Zumper as your choice for your Mia­mi apart­ment hunt­ing jour­ney. 

3- Furnished Or Unfurnished?

That is anoth­er thing to think about when you’re look­ing for a place which is fur­nished or not fur­nished home. Unfur­nished places tend to be a bit afford­able, but then you have to fur­nish your place. It’s not too hard to do it on a bud­get; you’ll find every­thing from beds, sofas to TVs to desks on lots of web­sites like Craiglist, etc.

4- What About Additional Costs?

Sur­pris­ing­ly, util­i­ties in Mia­mi are a touch low­er than the nation­al aver­age. Accord­ing to Smart Asset, the aver­age util­i­ty bill for a 915 square foot apart­ment will run you about $115, a lit­tle less than $40 cheap­er than the nation­al aver­age. That bill includes basic elec­tric­i­ty, garbage ser­vice, water, and heating. 

5- Know Your Rights

If you’re new to Mia­mi, this will be for­eign ground, but it’s so cru­cial that you know and under­stand your rights and what’s required of both you and your landlord.  Please take a look at the Landlord/Tenant Law in Flori­da for infor­ma­tion on your respon­si­bil­i­ties and rights as a ten­ant and every­thing else. 

6- Be Patient And Persistant

It can be pret­ty dis­cour­ag­ing but trust me, the right place is out there! Please keep look­ing twice a day, every day. Many apart­ments get added all the time, so you’ve got to be on the ball. Some peo­ple look at their apart­ment just 1–2 hours after the list­ing went live, and for­tu­nate­ly, the land­lord liked them, and they got it on the same day. If you’re just arriv­ing in the city, plan and clear your sched­ule for few days or so and be ready to look at apart­ments at short notice. 

7- Explore The Area

It real­ly mat­ters to take a quick walk around the block before or after look­ing at an apart­ment. See what the neighbourhood’s like, nav­i­gate where your near­est gro­cery store is, and more that might inter­est you later.

8- Keep An Open Mind

Land­lords’ images can be deceiv­ing, so you need to keep an open mind and don’t judge it before you get there. A bit might look a hun­dred times worse, and equal­ly, It might look a hun­dred times bet­ter than the photos.

9- View In The Daytime

I always sug­gest day­time view­ing in dim­ly light­ing; it’s super easy to miss things like grub­by walls, mould around the win­dows, etc. It’s also great to know what kind of nat­ur­al light your apart­ment will get and just get a good feel for the place.

10- Be Ready

We can­not see the future, so you nev­er know — you might see an apart­ment, like it and move in the next day, which means you need to be well pre­pared and ready to act. 

Final Thought

Please always remem­ber to stay opti­mistic! Remem­ber, apart­ment hunt­ing in Mia­mi can take time, so have a belief that some­thing will come up!  Your dream apart­ment will like­ly appear when you least expect it, so don’t lose hope and trust that you’ll find some­where that suits your needs and soul!