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Moving from a big apartment to a small apartment may mean less space, but it can also be a good thing — especially if you’re moving to a better location or will be paying less rent (and less in utilities) every month. If you’re ever in this situation, take note of our 5 ways to downsize when you’re moving to a small apartment…

Start early. If you leave everything to the last minute, there may not be enough time to get organized. Give yourself plenty of time to make your move as smooth as possible.

Take inventory. When you really look at what you have, you may be surprised to find out how much you don’t need, even in a large space. You might even find some things you’ve had but haven’t been using. Either way, once you know what you have, you’ll be able to plan for your move to the small apartment. And don’t just look at furnishings: include clothing, bedding and accessories you have as well.

Make a plan for your new space. Think about your new apartment and try to plan out what will go where. This will help you decide what to take and what to sell or donate. Since you’ll be starting fresh in a smaller home, a great option you have is getting creative with the new space. Consider small-space solutions like shelving and multi-purpose furniture (example: ottomans that can double as coffee tables and extra seating for guests).

Sell, sell, sell. Once you’ve figured out what you do and don’t need, consider selling the stuff you won’t be taking with you to your new apartment. There are plenty of websites that will let you place a free ad, and there’s also your newspaper’s classifieds section. Even Facebook has a classifieds section.

Donate, donate, donate. Have a friend or family member in need? A local thrift store, church, school or shelter? Whatever you do, don’t just send off that nightstand or La-Z-Boy to the dump — someone will probably be able to use it, even if you think it’s unusable or broken. As they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

Luxury apartments

These types of living spaces can be found all over the country in cities big and small, and the specific amenities and extras depend on the apartment building. In New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, for example, it’s not uncommon for high-rise luxury apartments to offer a 24-hour doorman and concierge service. Some buildings even have in-house dry cleaning and trash service. Still, luxury apartments in smaller cities wow residents with DVD rentals, dog run areas, free cable and garages.

Higher Rent, But More for Your Money

While rent for luxury apartments may cost more, you have to keep in mind that you’re getting more. That private gym, the lush landscaping and the lap pool all come at a premium. Plus, there aren’t as many luxury apartments as “regular” apartments, so that also figures into the cost. When you’re searching for a luxury apartment, be sure and weigh the cost with the amenities you’ll be getting.

Renters who’d like their living space to be higher-end should definitely check out luxury apartments, since it’s not uncommon for them to offer unique floorplans, track lighting, crown molding and open kitchens with stainless steel appliances. While the standard wall color for apartments seems to be white or off-white, walls in luxury apartments may be beige or allow you to request accent walls be painted before your move-in day. Be sure to ask your apartment manager if this type of service is available.

Find Luxury Apartments

If you’d like to find luxury apartments, use our free apartment search tools. To help you find your next home, we suggest you make a list of amenities you’re looking for and use it to compare the apartments you view. Take into consideration location, lease terms, rent and what exactly is included with your rent, like access to the apartment gym or concierge service, for example.

Decide if you’ll continue living alone or if you need to find a new roommate. This decision may be best made by taking a hard look at your income and your monthly expenses. Will you be able to pay for all of rent and all of your bills by yourself? If you need a roommate to help pay for these expenses, start looking as soon as you can.

Speaking of bills… are they in your name, or were they in your roommate’s name? Same with renter’s insurance: Be sure you have it.

Inform your apartment manager. Stop by your apartment office or call to give them a heads up that the living situation has changed. Many apartment landlords require this so that they know who is living in which units. And if you wind up getting a new roommate, let them know that too. If your roommate was the person who signed the apartment lease, you should ask what needs to be done.

Take inventory. If your roommate moved out and took most of the furniture, you may want to look at replacing some of that stuff so you have your own. Similarly, you can take this opportunity to organize and clean your apartment — it’ll help you be prepared if potential roommates come by to check out your apartment.

Keep your roommate’s mail in one place and communicate with them a time — maybe once per week — where they can come by and pick it up. If they moved far away, you might need to send them a package every so often with all their mail. Talk to your roommate about this to figure out the best way to handle it.

These are all just suggestions for what to do when your roommate moves out to help make the situation go a little more smoothly. If you’re moving out soon, be sure and use our free apartment search tools to find your next home.

Give Things a “Life Expectancy” of Usefulness

Still attached to that extra-small argyle sweater you loved in eighth grade, even though you’re now a foot too tall for it?  We understand the sentiment, but still, that sweater is taking up valuable storage space.  Consider reselling or donating it — or maybe even making it an heirloom and gifting it to someone else in the family.  A good rule of thumb is, if it takes up space and you haven’t used it in over a year, strongly consider getting rid of it somehow.  And don’t stop with clothes.  Do you have any bulky and highly specialized kitchen equipment that you never use?  What about an exercise bike that’s been a drying rack for six years running?  It’s tough to be ruthless, but you’ll thank yourself with the extra cubic feet.

Think in Three Dimensions

Notice how we wrote “cubic feet” instead of the more common “square feet?” That’s because you need to start thinking of the space in your apartment in three dimensions.  Creativity is endless in this department, but things like putting a wine rack on the wall to store rolled-up towels or hanging a basket from the ceiling to put fruit in are helpful space savers that free up floor space. Installing shelves is also a good idea.

Reduce, Reuse, and Save

These tips are just a few that will help you in your quest to make your apartment roomier.  Don’t have a place of your own yet, or are you looking for a different one?  Use our apartment search tools to get where you need to be.

Take a Walk

Walking out of your apartment and around the neighborhood is one of the best ways you can really get to know where you’re living. You can move slowly enough to be able to take everything in, so you won’t miss the small stuff. Getting “lost” on a neighborhood walk helps you find your way around and see where useful places may be, like a community pool, post office, convenience store or 24-hour pharmacy. If you think you might actually get lost, bring a map.

Say Hello to Your Neighbors

Striking up a casual conversation with your neighbors, whether it’s the person who lives in the apartment below you or the person who owns the Mom ‘n’ Pop shop on the corner, is another great way to get to know the neighborhood. Don’t be afraid to ask them questions or recommendations for restaurants and stores. Their experience living in the area means they may be able to pass on some useful information, so take advantage of that!

Pick Up the Paper

Does your neighborhood have its own newspaper or other type of publication? Maybe its own website? Some residents may even have blogs. Ask your neighbors or your apartment manager if you have trouble finding these things on your own. And if you’re new to the whole city, be sure and pick up the local publications. All of these could be excellent sources for local events and news, restaurant openings, club meetings, store openings and more. If you’re looking for a job in the area, newspapers will likely have some job listings.

These are just a few ways to get to know your neighborhood after you move into an apartment. And if you’d like help with finding an apartment in a specific neighborhood, you should definitely utilize our site’s free apartment search tools, which allow you to search listings from all over the country. What’s more is that when you rent with us, we pay you up to $200 in renter rewards. No fee, no obligation, no strings.

There’s a famous Plautus quote: “No guest is so welcome in a friend’s house that he will not become a nuisance after three days.” While that may not exactly be true for everybody, Plautus is making a good point — having house guests over can go from good to bad in the blink of an eye, often because they’ve just simply stayed too long. That can make for a really awkward situation.

If you’re hosting some friends or family members at your apartment, here are some tips for making sure things go smoothly with your house guests:

• If you have roommates, you should absolutely check in with them first. Tell them there’s a possibility that guests will be staying over at your apartment. Ask if that would be okay, and if so, how long they may stay.
• Talk to your house guests before they arrive, or preferably, before they make final plans. Let them know how long they may stay with you and be upfront about your house rules.
• You may also want to fill them in on your apartment complex’s rules.
• Going off the previous tip, find out what your house guests’ expectations are. Will they expect you to pick them up from the airport? Do they want you to take them on a tour of the city? Will you be their only transportation? These are important things to know before they arrive so you can plan accordingly. If they will be relying on you for transportation and your work schedule doesn’t really allow it, be sure to give them a heads up.
• Be honest about your expectations, too. If you want your house guests to wash their own dishes and help around the house, you should tactfully mention that when you extend your invitation.
• Once plans are made, make sure you have a place for your house guests to sleep. If you have a small apartment and only have a couch to offer up for bed space, let your guests know so that they can make arrangements to bring an air mattress or a sleeping bag.
• Have clean towels ready for them.
• If you know of any of their favorite snacks or drinks (you can always ask them!), you could pick them up before your house guests arrive. They’ll appreciate your thoughtful gesture.

Laying out rules and being clear with your house guests before they even arrive can help make things go as smoothly as possible. After all, being a host should be enjoyable, not a source of frustration and stress.

If finding the right apartment for rent is what’s giving you stress, try out the free apartment search tools on our website! We’re a leading source for apartment listings nationwide, and you can also earn up to $200 in renter rewards just by finding a place with us.

Is it time to clean the apartment? It happens to the best of us: we get busy with work and other commitments and before we know it, our apartment is a mess. Dirty dishes stacked in and around the sink, floors covered in dust and pet hair, piles of laundry — left unattended, these things can go from bad to worse fast. And when an apartment is really messy, it may seem hopeless.

But fear not — there is hope! Though it will take time and effort, you can organize and clean your apartment.

Get Mean About Clean

One of the best things to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed by an apartment mess is to figure out a plan of attack. Decide what to clean first. Most likely, you’ll want to first take care of things that are creating bad smells. Take out the garbage (and clean your trash can, if necessary), clean out any rotten or moldy food from the fridge, make sure kitchen sponges aren’t stinky, and if you have pets, clean their areas. Litter boxes, puppy pads and bird cages, for example, can really become a mess if they aren’t given enough attention.

Once you tackle the biggest messes in your apartment, you may feel like the rest will be a cinch. Move onto your next tasks, but plan them out so you can clean efficiently. For example, because dirt falls as you clean, you may want to dust ceiling fans, artwork and tables before you vacuum, and you might want to clean the kitchen and bathroom counters before you mop the floors.

Enjoy Your Clean Apartment

Once you’ve gotten your apartment clean, you can relax and enjoy your home without having any stress about needing to clean weighing on  your shoulders. Having a clean apartment means you’ll be more comfortable, and you won’t have to scramble if guests come over without much notice. We know life can be hectic, but keep in mind that it’s much easier to keep an apartment tidy if you clean more often. Cleaning more often means you won’t have to spend a large chunk of time every so often getting things organized and neat.

And of course, if you’re trying to find an apartment, we invite you to browse the hundreds of apartments for rent on ApartmentSearch.com. Not only are our apartment listings easy to search, but you can earn up to $200 in renter rewards when you find an apartment with us!

A chore chart might be the key to harmony in your new apartment.

So you’ve rented an apartment, found a roommate and are all moved in. It feels nice to be settled in at your new home, but there’s still something important to take care of: How will you split up the chores?

No doubt, chores are no fun. We’d all much rather spend our time doing something fun instead of scrubbing the tub or taking out the trash. But it’s gotta get done, or an apartment will quickly turn into a mess. Not organizing chores is also a sure way to get into a conflict with your roommate, so make things clear from the beginning. There are a few ways you can do this — just talking to your roommate and deciding what chores will be done by which person and how often, or making a Chore Chart.

A Chore Chart may feel a little bit lame at first. Can’t we just do the chores when they need to get done? you might wonder. You can try it that way, but all too often when directions aren’t clear, chores will wind up getting forgotten about. Dishes can pile up in the sink, dirt can cover the floor and bathrooms can get downright awful. If you and your roommate are clear on which chores you’re supposed to handle, you can avoid all kinds of messes.

Setting Up a Chore Chart

Making a Chore Chart is easy. Get together with your roommate and come up with a list of chores that need to get done. It’s different for everyone, but here’s a list to help you get going:

• Load the dishwasher
• Unload the dishwasher
• Wipe down kitchen counters and sink
• Wipe down bathroom counters
• Mop kitchen floor
• Mop bathroom floor
• Clean the toilet, tub and sink
• Vacuum
• Dust
• Clean out fridge
• Take out the trash and recycling

Once you’ve got your list — and you’ll probably be adding to the list as you discover new chores — start working on the actual chart. You can either go big and put it on a poster board, or just put it on a regular piece of paper. Keep in mind that you may want to recreate this chart every couple of weeks. You’ll want to make a few columns at the top: Chore, Who?, Due Date and Done. List each chore on its own line under Chore, the person responsible for it under Who?, the date you’d like it done under Due Date, and leave the Done column blank. Once the chore is done, just put a check mark by it in that column. Keep your Chore Chart somewhere visible, like on the fridge.

If you or your roommate are unhappy with your assigned chores, just switch off next time to keep it fair.

And remember, if you haven’t gotten to the chore chart stage yet, and are just looking for a decent apartment for rent, Apartment Search is here to help. Our website has tons of resources and fantastic apartment listings for you to browse. Plus if you end up finding an apartment through Apartment Search, you can collect up to $200 in apartment rental rewards! Not a bad way to start out in your new place.

Is there such thing as The Perfect Roommate? Of course not! We all have roommate search horror stories, whether it involves that guy who hogged the television all day and well into the night and always paid his share of the bills a week late, to the gal whose pet beagle howled any time she was away. The thing with a roommate search is that all too often, you don’t really know what you’re going to get — and realizing that you got a bad roommate is no fun. Maybe you were in a hurry to find a roommate, or maybe you just didn’t know what to look out for. Whatever happened, one thing’s for sure: There are a few things you can do that will help you with your roommate search.

• First, you need to be honest about who you are. Are you a slob? Do you get upset when there is even one dirty dish in the sink? Do you love to have lots of people over all the time? If you don’t like to clean and are always having people over, it’s not very fair to search for a roommate who likes things clean and wants the apartment to be quiet and private.
• Meet up with potential roommates to talk. If you don’t feel safe or comfortable meeting them at your home, meet at a coffee shop or another public place where you can sit down and have a conversation.
• Find out what their schedule is like. If they have a night job and sleep during the day, and you have a 9-to-5, that could potentially cause a conflict.
• What are their hobbies?
• Do you want to include pet owners in your roommate search?
• Do they drink, smoke or do drugs?
• Discuss the things that typically wind up becoming problems when they’re not first addressed: how chores will be handled, how things like kitchen utensils and food will be shared, what’s okay and not okay when it comes to having guests over, thermostat settings, out-of-town guests, when bills need to be paid and so on.

These are just a few ideas to help you get a good roommate search going. If you meet with a potential roommate and you get the feeling the two of you wouldn’t be the best match, don’t be afraid to politely tell them that. It’ll sure save you a lot of roommate frustration in the long run.

Apartment Gym Etiquette

There are several unspoken rules you should keep in mind if you use an apartment gym:

• Make sure you clean up after yourself. Bring a towel to wipe up sweat from machines and benches, and if sanitizer and paper towels are provided, clean the gym equipment before and after you use it out of courtesy to the next person who will use it. You might also want to consider bringing a second, smaller towel for wiping sweat off your forehead.
• Don’t talk on your cell phone. Apartment gyms are small, and neighbors working out near you might be annoyed if they have to listen to your conversation. You can always step outside if you absolutely must take a call.
• If there are other people around, be careful that you don’t stay on a gym machine for too long — someone might be waiting for you to finish. Sometimes there will be a sign-up sheet or the management will post notifications regarding gym machine time limits, but if there isn’t anything posted, just use your best judgment.
• If you work out with free weights, put them back when you’re headed to another station or your apartment. Gym weights left on the floor can wind up hurting one of your neighbors.
• On a similar note, if you use a bar with weights on it, be sure and re-rack the weights. The gym patron who uses it after you may not be able to lift the amount you were lifting.

Find an Apartment with a Gym

Is all this talk about apartment gyms making you want to live somewhere that has one? We can’t blame you. Find an apartment that offers an apartment gym at ApartmentSearch.com, or search for an apartment for rent by state or city.