<p>My daughter is about to go through this too 3000 miles away where she has to find the apartment long distance and not see it first. This is different than the previous apartments she has had where WE didn’t see it, but she did (same with our other D). In all these cases, our kids are the ones who arranged it and picked it out. However, if I ever saw listings online, I shared them with them (they were in charge and I didn’t take over but I’m interested in seeing what’s out there and if I run across anything interesting, I send the links to them). Ya know, one can have very independent kids (I think mine are), but parents can still be a resource and share what they know or find in addition to the kid who is in charge and doing it on their own too.</p>
<p>Anyway, this time around, my kid, like yours, has to find and commit to an apartment site unseen. She has done that when getting places overseas before actually, though never for a full year. She has, seen this new area when she visited grad schools. So, this will be interesting and not as great as when she got apartments in the past and picked them out after seeing them, even though we were not in those cities as parents.</p>
<p>Once our son was college bound we considered him a adult and on his own in doing things like apartment hunting. He recently relocated to LA from Orlando due to a job change and his apartment hunting in Troy and Orlando gave him the experience to get along just fine.</p>
<p>My oldest kid works at a church camp during the summer so she doesn’t have much time to look for apartments and no access to a cell phone during the weeks that she’s a cabin counselor. The last two years she’s had apartments while working as a substitute teacher. I’ve had to do much of the search for her, and found her apartments through Craig’s list… and did speak with the landlords for her since they couldn’t talk with her directly. She has lived in two fixer-uppers, but the landlords were great about renting to someone without steady employment. This year’s landlord made her sign 4 month lease and then let her go month to month in case she found a “real” job and needed to move.
Younger daughter has to move off campus next week when she starts graduate classes. She and a friend found themselves a sublet and are desperately seeking an apartment for the fall and spring semesters. She’s more independent and living in the area where she needs to stay, so she’s pretty much on her own. But I did help her figure out what kinds of information to get about leases and utilities and stuff like that.</p>
<p>There aren’t tons of things you get to do with your college-grad kids who live in other cities. Helping them find the best possible housing is something to do together, and I don’t see it as helicoptoring or running their lives. It’s ultimately the kid’s decision, but most of us have a lot more experience with such things and there is nothing wrong with sharing the load.</p>
<p>I’ve found 3 apts, long distance. rather fun. The worm always wants to know about noise. The one time he let a rm/mt chose, it was a disaster–right over a subway turn-around stop.Very noisy.</p>