Applying
Application Fee
When you apply for an apartment with us, you will be asked to submit an application fee and fill out an Application to Rent. The application fee is applied towards the cost of performing a background check on you, and is non-refundable regardless of the final disposition of your application. This means that regardless of whether your application is approved or denied, you will not be able to receive a refund of any of the application fees you have submitted. In the event that a co-signer is required, the co-signer(s) must also submit application fees and fill out a co-signer application.
Before applying, we recommend that you review a sample Apartment Lease agreement.
Download an Application to Rent.
Background Check
A full background check usually takes one to three days, and in some cases can take in excess of two weeks to complete. In order to expedite the process, please notify former employers and other references that we will be contacting them, and ask them to respond to us as quickly as possible. Your credit reports, criminal history and landlord/tenant history will be factored. Your income must be at least three times the amount of rent in order to be approved. We must also receive favorable references from previous landlords and/or mortgagers for a minimum five year period immediately prior to your application, and from at least two references. Co-signer background check requirements may differ somewhat.
Hold Fee
During the application process, the apartment you are applying for will still be listed for rent. In the event that the apartment rents prior to the completion of your background check, your application fee would be forfeit. In order to avoid such a scenario, we now require that you submit a hold fee in order to hold the apartment during the application process.
When you submit a hold fee to us, we will hold the apartment you have selected for a five business day hold period, in order to complete the background check. At the end of the five days you must have signed an Apartment Lease and submitted to us the required security deposit, rent, and all other fees required, otherwise the apartment will go back on the market and be available for rent to the public.
The hold fee is conditionally-refundable. Here’s how it works:
- If your application is approved, we will apply the full amount of the hold fee against your first month’s rent.
- In the event that your application is denied by us, you will receive the hold fee back in its entirety, and we will mail or email you the reasons behind our denial.
- If your application is accepted, but you choose not to sign a lease for the apartment, you will not receive back any of the hold fee.
- In the event that your five day hold period expires and someone else applies a hold fee on that apartment or leases that apartment before your lease is completed, you will not receive any of the hold fee back. You can extend your hold period by paying a second hold fee.
The reason we collect a hold fee is to compensate us for the rent we lose while holding an empty apartment for you. We will gladly accept this loss if you rent from us, but if you decide not to on your own accord, we feel it is only fair that you compensate us for the lost rent we incurred by holding the apartment for you instead of renting it to someone else.