One thing you need to know is if you are the type of person who can live with someone else. You need to be able to share everything, but your room. You need to be able to share the kitchen and food, the computer, the couch and the bathroom. You need to know if you can handle having people you may not know in your house because they are your roommate's friends. Or are you the type of person who likes to have your space, and your privacy and like to be able to do what you want to when you want to, then you may want to consider living by yourself.
If you can handle the above mentioned stuff, then consider if you can live with your roommate not cleaning up after then selves all the time and knowing you will have to clean a mess that is not yours up.
If you think you can still handle that then you can start to consider who you might want to live with. Take many things into consideration with this. Answer these questions.
- Can they pay half of everything?
- Are they responsible?
- Do you trust them not to steal, do drugs, ECT
- Can you stand their personality, and how well do you two get long?
If all this works out then you can get together with your roommate and decide what your budget would be. Make sure you keep in a safe range and try not to push the budget so you aren't strapped at the end of every month. Also make sure you have first last and security deposit and if you want a pet make sure you have the pet deposit.
Next decide what you must have and what you can live. If you have to have a dish washer then make sure you look for a place that has one, if you don't mind doing dishes then a dishwasher isn't important. Decide if you want a washer and dryer in the unit or if you don't mind going a few buildings up to do laundry.
Once you decide what you have to have and can live without. Start looking around and pay attention to the area the neighbors and such. Then inside make sure you can live with the set up and make sure all your stuff will fit and make sure you can picture yourself in the place.
