A Guide to Find Housing Before Starting Your First Job

Graduating and Starting an Engineering Job Soon? Here's a Guide to Finding Housing.

You’re a few months from starting a new engineering job in a new or familiar city and you need to find housing. You may be wondering what considerations you should make before deciding. This post will cover my thoughts on housing when starting (and relocating) for my past engineering jobs.

By Shainur Ahsan

What to Look for in Your New Housing

You may or may not be familiar with the location you will be moving to for your new job. But you’ll need to learn quickly in order to decide on which location and type of housing will be best suited for your first engineering job. I recommend to start your search at least a month before your first day. Although this probably isn’t a decision that will make your break your career (or finances), it is critical to making your first year out of school more enjoyable.

I’m going to list my experiences with moving when starting my first job as well as the considerations I made when relocating with my previous company. I’m planning another article to cover the actual steps to formally renting a place. But here’s information to narrow down housing types and locations. Here are some factors to consider. I’ll be going further into depth on these below.

Other factors to consider are if you will be required to visit the field a lot and how long the company intends to keep you at the current location. Be sure to discuss both with your future employer ahead of choosing housing.

Let’s get into factors for choosing the best housing. Be sure to check out the related links at the bottom and check back for future posts.

Finding Housing within Your Budget

At this point, you should know the starting salary of your new engineering job. Equally important, you should have a financial plan to help you understand which housing you can afford. If you haven’t given much thought about money or started a budget, consider reading my post on how to get started here.

Renting a place is the best choice for housing at the very early stages of your career. It’s better to not take on the full risks of home ownership until you have established your finances and career. You may have many or limited rental options depending on where you end up moving. Apartment complexes and buildings are the easiest form of housing to search for and often come bundled with nice amenities. As you’re dealing with larger and more experienced companies, the leasing process is relatively simple.

However, individual listings from smaller or individual landlords may offer cheaper, more unique choices, and flexible terms. Usually, they won’t have as many nice amenities. Individual listings may be in the form of an entire or shared condo, townhouse, or house. Small and medium sized cities will often provide the most variety of types of places to live. It’s important to consider the true costs of living for each type of place.

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I’ve lived in a variety of places over the last seven years and have been able to understand the expenses associated with different types of housing. Let’s run through some factors to consider for cost and terms.

Going Solo or Sharing with Roomates

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One of best ways to save money early in your career is to get a roommate which can effectively cut your rent and utility bills in half. Many of us have had roommates in college and grad school, so having a roommate for another few years is not a deal breaker.

Sharing a place with a roommate(s) opens up more housing options. It allows you to find a larger place or a place closer to your work than you would have been able to afford by yourself. You can often share some costs beyond utilities such as food and supplies as well as sharing responsibilities such as cleaning. Be sure to communicate ahead of time what all expenses will be shared so that there will be less conflicts later on. Ensure any major financial commitments are captured in writing.

Housing Rental Type

Expenses for apartments are largely predictable with rents often published on the website. The leasing agent will typically know the cost of utilities for the apartments and explain typical fees. Be sure to be aware of additional fees such as amenity fees, garbage valet fees, or parking fees which may be required by some companies.

I’ve spent roughly four years living in either a condo or a home rented from individual landlords. I’ve found that they’ve been the best values I’ve had and met my particular needs. However, they did come with slightly more work to maintain the place. I’ll share my experiences below.

For my condo rentals, I generally found that I could get a larger amount of space for a smaller monthly rent. One of the condos even had a gym and pool which won’t always be the case for condos. Some of my rents included utilities such as water and garbage as the landlord had to take care of those costs through the HOA fee. I did find that I had to take a more hands-on approach to maintenance but nothing major. Fortunately, my landlords always reimbursed me for any supplies for out-of-pocket expenses. I either lived alone or was married during the times I lived in a condo so I never really had a true roommate. Utility bills were about the same as for a similarly-sized apartment.

For my house rentals, I always shared the space with at least one other person. I found that I got way more space for a monthly rent that was much less than for a one-bedroom apartment. The shared common space made these places feel roomy. I usually had a dedicated parking space off of the street. Utility bills for the house were a bit more due to the larger living space and upkeep for the space took more effort than for the condo. Heating and cooling costs in particular were much more than for a condo. In addition, I and the roommates were expected to help with keep the front and back yards orderly.

Lease Length

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The lease term is the duration you are committing to staying in the rental. Standard leases typically are set for a one year term and is the preferred option. Shorter leases typically have higher rents, so you should only use them when you have to such as if you know you will be relocating soon.

The lease term should definitely be a consideration when searching for housing. It may be likely that your company may not plan or be able to keep you in one location throughout your career. This is especially true of engineering companies involved in national projects. I was relocated within a year of joining my first engineering company! Luckily, my first landlord was flexible and we worked out an option for me to leave before the lease expired. Communicate with your future employer to understand how long they intend to keep you in the office.

Lease Break Conditions

It’s important to understand your options in case you need to relocate before your lease expires. I’ve had to deal with relocations a few times and have had to deal with various options outlined in the lease. From my experience, individual landlords are more flexible than an apartment complex/building.

For the individual landlords, I’ve found that they typically offer an option to sublease the apartment for the remaining duration of the lease. One of them even allowed breaking the lease for a small fee if I was relocated more than 50 miles away from the place. Another of my landlords agreed to a month-to-month lease as I knew I would be in that area for only a few months. Check out individual landlords if you know you’ll have special circumstances.

Personal Experience Breaking a Lease at an Apartment Complex

I’ve encountered much stricter terms for one of my past apartment complexes managed by a larger company. The lease term for that building didn’t allow for lease breaks and made me responsible for the full year’s rent. Additionally, I was not allowed to sublease the apartment. The only way out of the lease was finding someone to take a new lease on my apartment for the current monthly rent. This put me at a large disadvantage since any new renter going directly to the building leasing office could get a better monthly rent.

Luckily, myself and my roommate were relocating around the same time. We both took advantage of our company’s relocation policy which would pay for the security deposit plus two months of rent. These are typical terms you would see for an apartment building. This covered the remaining four months on our lease and saved us from losing money.

The moral of this story is to be sure to read your lease and understand your commitments and and options for an early lease break. Also be familiar with your company’s relocation policy to understand what financial help you’ll receive.

Picking the Right Housing Location

Selecting the right location is key to ensuring you have a manageable commute and you’re not too far from the places you want to be. The right location can save you time and money in the long run. This is where mapping out points of interest can greatly help you to narrow down neighborhoods.

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Commute time has always been a major factor for me in selecting a neighborhood to live in. It should be a major consideration for you as well. I’ve been lucky enough to never live more than a 25 minute trip away from the office. This has ensured I’ve had free time for hobbies and personal care after coming home from work.

My strategy for picking a neighborhood has boiled down to looking my work location on Google Maps. Next, I try to find neighborhoods that lie on the major highways and interstates leading away from the office if further away. For locations nearby, I look for places that have secondary roads leading to the office. I then narrow down the neighborhood by seeing which ones have features I want. No neighborhood has everything, so if something was missing, I made sure it was not too far away. I’ve never had to use transit, but if doing so, make sure you look at places along major transit routes. Planning my housing this way has made my quality of life much better without having to deal with a stressful commute.

One thing to consider for those starting their first engineering job is where you will report to during the week. I have been in mainly office jobs during my career, but other engineers may find themselves regularly in the field. If regular visits are required, then select a place convenient to getting around the area. If visits are infrequent, then just focus on making your commute to the office a priority.

I want to share my selection process for two of my past rentals.

Example: Apartment Building in Richmond, VA

Being a medium sized city, I really wanted to live inside of the city due to the relatively low cost of living. However, my office was located in the suburban Innsbrook area. Innsbrook was on a major interstate (I-64) which meant parts of the city were easily accessible. Ultimately, I chose to live in Scott’s Addition. At the time, the neighborhood had just started to turn from a largely industrial area to a residential area filled with independent, local restaurants.

I had looked at listings from individual landlords but ultimately decided to rent a two-bedroom apartment in a newly-converted office building. I ultimately ended up getting a roommate to share the cost. Being that the neighborhood was not developed, the rent was very reasonable.

Although this neighborhood didn’t have many local places of interest, it had great interstate access and was walking distance (or a 5-10 minute drive) to other great neighborhoods and attractions. This neighborhood also meant that I would have a reverse commute and my trip from the office was usually no longer than 25 minutes.

Richmond Apartment:

Example: Condo Rental in Reston, VA

Not too long ago I used to work in Reston, VA in the Greater Washington DC Metro Area. The DC metro area has some of the worst traffic in the nation. Knowing this, as well as being happy with the local neighborhood near the office, I wanted to minimize my commute as much as possible. In addition, I wanted to avoid the freeways and major highways as they were heavily congested during rush hour.

I found condo rents to be less than apartment complexes in the area and offered slightly more space. This led me to finding a condo (near the hospital on the map) located just over one mile from my office. Talk about an easy commute! I could take secondary roads entirely to get between my home and office and could even walk if I wanted to. The drive never took longer than 8 minutes. Compare this to some of my colleagues who had almost one and a half hour commutes! I felt very happy at this place and would almost always go home for lunch with my wife.

Reston Condo:

Conclusion on Selecting Housing

In summary, your housing choice should fall within your budget as well as be near the office and places important to you. Though you’ll more often see ads for large apartment complexes and buildings, be aware of the many individual landlords out there who can offer better values and more flexible leasing terms. Picking the right place to live when starting your first engineering job is key to making your first year out of college much more enjoyable.

Consider these three main points:

Finding a place to live is not the last thing you’ll need to worry about before staring your first engineering job. I’ll discuss what further preparations to make in future articles and stay tuned for future posts on other considerations in the months before starting a new engineering job. Be sure to check out the links below for some deeper information on the key points made in this article.

Helpful Links

Planning for Your First Engineering Job

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The content in this post is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Individuals reading this post should consider their personal situation and relevant risks and liabilities before taking any action.