5 Factors To Consider Before You Sign The Lease

There are many things to think about before you move to your new home or apartment. You may be deciding on what kind of insurance you want, what movers to hire, whether or not you’re going to install safeguard systems like CCTV, etc. There are other factors that you may forget about in your scramble to get a good deal with an acceptable lease. Here are five factors you should make sure you consider before moving or signing on the dotted line:

Acoustics—Do your own research and test the acoustics of your new home. If it’s an apartment, you want to make sure that you can’t hear every step your upstairs neighbors take. If it’s a home, you should make sure that the walls aren’t too thin. Sometimes all it takes is a single closing door to send a wave of loud noises throughout the house.

Neighbors—Meet your neighbors, and, more importantly, hang around the prospective house or apartment to see how they behave themselves. If your neighbors hold loud poker games several times a week, or blast movies and music that the entire neighborhood can hear, it might be worth reconsidering the move. A landlord can address this issue, but sometimes nothing can be done.

Local services—Find out if there are recycling facilities nearby, as well as a variety of energy and Internet providers. Often times these options are limited, but it’s certainly a factor worth looking into before you move. It’s also worth looking into whether or not there are any companies that service smart homes. If you choose to upgrade your house or apartment in the future, it’s good to know there will be someone who can help you.

Wi-Fi and mobile reception—Test whether or not you get a lot dropped calls. Don’t sign the lease on a place before finding out whether or not you’re in a ‘dead zone’. The same goes with your Wi-Fi connection. A simple Google search should yield a reliable crowdsourced answer as to whether the area where you’re planning on moving to experiences frequent network trouble. You don’t want to be stuck resetting the modem every fifteen minutes.

Pests—Check the history of bedbugs, rodents, and other pests on your property as well as throughout the neighborhood. Even it has been recently fumigated, pests such as bedbugs frequently persist. Bedbugs are making a big comeback in South Africa. Fortunately, there are plenty of blogs out there that have archived tenants’ reports of their activity.

These are five factors that could spell the difference between a wonderful new home and a nightmare. Do your homework on acoustics, neighbors, local services, Wi-Fi, and pests before you sign the lease to your new place.

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