<p>AFI may not have a lot of postings for room rentals, but another local college might. He’d have to look at the housing boards of the local CC or CSU. </p>
<p>BTW, if he has time, John Williams and the LA Philharmonic put on a variation of this show on at the Hollywood Bowl every year and if he has time, he and a friend should go. Many folks bring out their light sabers during some of the Star Wars songs. The John Williams cheapiest tickets are all sold out unfortunately, so the price is maybe low $30ish range. Or your son could go any summer. It’s always one weekend each summer. The LA Phil is doing a Simpsons show at the Hollywood bowl in Mid-sept that looks fun and our family will be going to this year. They still might have the cheapest seats available. Check it out.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ticketmaster.com/john-williams-maestro-of-the-movies-hollywood-california-08-29-2014/event/0B004C66DC91B68F?artistid=770238&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=203&tm_link=artist_msg-1_0B004C66DC91B68F”>http://www.ticketmaster.com/john-williams-maestro-of-the-movies-hollywood-california-08-29-2014/event/0B004C66DC91B68F?artistid=770238&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=203&tm_link=artist_msg-1_0B004C66DC91B68F</a></p>
<p>So far he has tried Craigslist, Westside, Homecircle (USAA), another that I can’t remember, and yesterday we added Zillow. They all have had some reasonably priced apartments listed. The biggest problem is not being able to go to these places during normal business hours; today they are having a master class until 10 pm. This schedule for the first six weeks called boot camp is brutal. I am making tentative plans to fly out next week. Although I am really reluctant to do that, we can’t see any other way. I haven’t rented an apartment for over 35 years so it is definitely outside of my comfort zone. </p>
<p>Apartment rental agreements or leases are usually boilerplate. It doesn’t take a lawyer to go through them, though. I have a feeling it will either be sign or not, but I have successfully come to an agreement to line out some item or add a clause with people for small things. Just make sure that if you are going to be allowed to do something different, that that is noted on the agreement You should always be familiar with your tenant rights in the State and the county. You can’t sign away your rights so don’t worry about that.
<a href=“http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/catenant.pdf”>http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/catenant.pdf</a></p>
<p>Op,
In addition to zillow, maybe try realtor.com</p>
<p>
Have you considered saving the plane fare and working with a rental agent? I mean - you’d pay plane fare plus the cost of your own accommodations, you don’t know the neighborhoods, you don’t the transit lines, and you don’t know the local rental market or local custom and practices with rentals. A rental agent knows all of that stuff. </p>
<p>I don’t live in LA, I can’t recommend an agent, but here is where I would start:
<a href=“http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Apartment+Rental+Agency&find_loc=Los+Angeles%2C+CA”>http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Apartment+Rental+Agency&find_loc=Los+Angeles%2C+CA</a></p>
<p>If it were me, I’d call the on with the 123 reviews and 4 star average rating. That’s a lot of reasonably satisfied customers,. </p>
<p>I mean, the point is that there are people who do this for a living: why not use one?</p>
<p>Even if you were to work with an agent, someone would still need to see the apartment before signing. I don’t know any agent would commit a renter to a property without viewing it first. I think OP would be more productive if she were to work with an agent once she is out in CA. </p>
<p>The agent would be able to screen apartments and also work to accommodate the son’s schedule-- so he could attend class during the day and view the apartment. </p>
<p>I think the point is that he doesn’t have time to view the apartment and someone else (not the agent) needs to view it before commit. It doesn’t sound like the son has any time during the day.</p>
<p>I agree. Someone needs to see the places. </p>
<p>I was in this position once with my kid. He was in Colorado, and I went to NC to look at apartments. I did line up three potential visits via an agent before I left home. When I got there, I was the one making the decision about the place (a parent from here advised me about neighborhoods, and actually drove past the three places I was checking out before I even got there).</p>
<p>I actually rented the first place I saw. But I had to sign the lease, give the deposit, and guarantee the rent…because my kid was across the country.</p>
<p>I didn’t fly to CA nor to Cambridge, but I only looked at places with pictures and lay-outs. I spoke to landlords. Twice I got apartments for son sight unseen. His best place I found, but he and roommate went to inspect. The OP seems unsure of herself, and not prone to trust a realtor. She needs more confidence. If she can connect with a realtor by phone, then all fine. Otherwise, she just needs to go. excellent advice has been offered, about driving a few blocks from apt. locations, getting a feel for what streets and apartments. Me, I’d get the listing, go for higher priced apartments, then call back to the college. I’d make friends with someone from housing to learn about streets and areas. </p>
<p>It seems like I am constantly on CC but I missed these last few posts. I feel a little bit like Rip Van Winkle; I last rented an apartment back in the 70’s. Times have changed but I will catch up. Even before I read these latest posts, my H and I were getting contact info from a real estate professional here in PA for a colleague of his in LA. It isn’t that I don’t trust agents, it is just that it has been so long since I have done anything like this that I had forgotten how to go about it. I knew about Craigslist and my S knew about Craigslist and my next door neighbor whose older daughter went to grad school in SF mentioned Craigslist, so that is where we started. </p>
<p>Besides forgetting the process, there are also different circumstances from when I rented. I had a full time teaching job before I apartment. S is a full time grad student with no income. He does have a 529 to pay his tuition and a savings account for expenses, but I doubt that will be sufficient if a landlord wants to do a credit check. After the hassles he had when trying to rent a car, H and I decided that it makes sense for me to fly out. Although I prefer that my S handles what he can on his own, his school responsibilities come first so I guess I can take on the responsibility of personal assistant. Hey, when he is a big name producer, he will have staff to rent his living space!</p>
<p>From dreading the possibility of a trip to LA, now I am looking forward to it. H and I used to travel a lot but with his health issues the past few years, our trips have been for reunions and graduations. I am ready to play tourist.
Thanks, again, CCers, for all of your suggestions. </p>
<p>About shipping the car:</p>
<p>
We just track the status of the car shipped by the auto shipper. One day after the car was picked up by the shipper, the status is already “in-transit”. Very different from our past experience even though it is the same auto shipping company.</p>
<p>Now we are dreading the possibility that the car may arrive too soon and DS will not be able to pick up the car. We were told they could hold the car for up to 5 days, and will start to charge us storage fees after 5 days.</p>
<p>We were told by DS that he will be available to pick up the car on and after Sept. 11. The estimate of the delivery time is Sept. 8. When he said he is not available, he is really not available at all. (I heard oftentimes the time is not available for lunch so they had to survive by eating a super-sized breakfast only and skipping the lunch, or eating an energy bar put in the pocket in advance.)</p>
<p>I live in the neighborhood next to AFI. Let me know if you need any guidance. My initial recommendations would be, if he’s wanting to live close to school, look for places north of Sunset, preferably north of Hollywood. It’s a very walkable area, in fact I commute by subway. In addition to using the above listings, I found my apartment via Craigslist, also just drive the neighborhood to see if there’s places available. The caveat is it’s not the cheapest area, but still not too expensive.</p>
<p>PM me if you have any other questions.</p>
<p>Thanks, Trojanchick99. Since he wasn’t able to rent a car, I told him to start at the school and just walk in ever widening circles to see the buildings that were close. Even when we get his car to him, he is hoping to be able to walk to the school most days because of limited parking. Free time is the biggest issue now. It seems that he is in class every day but Sunday and most evenings so far. Boot camp lasts 6 weeks but he needs time to apartment hunt before then. He had a class until 10 pm yesterday so with the 3 hour time difference I couldn’t stay up to talk to him. I am hoping to talk with him this evening to see how things are going and to discuss my flying out on Tuesday. </p>
<p>It turns out that the car is delivered much sooner. The estimate of the delivery time is Sept. 8. But now on Sept. 3, the car has already been at its destination terminal!</p>
<p>The trouble for us: DS won’t be available for receiving the car for several days. Do you think we could ask the auto shipper to hold the car at the destination terminal for a few days?</p>
<p>It is supposedly a door-to-door service but I think they will likely ask DS to go to some parking lot (e.g., the one at a IKEA) to pick up the car because their car carrier can not be driven to where he lives. Too crowded there.</p>
<p>I think the car was picked up on Aug. 26 pm. But it is at the destination terminal early morning on Sept. 3. It was shipped coast-to-coast. (I leave this info as one data point in case this info is useful to OP.)</p>
<p>How did the trip go, lotsofquests?</p>
<p>When we shipped our kids’ cars, we had a window of several days to pick the vehicle up. If you went beyond that, you had to pay storage fees. Your S should check to see if the shipper has a time window as well. Shipper should at least give your S until the date the vehicle was supposed to arrive with no storage fees, since he couldn’t plan that the car would arrive early and he has scheduling challeges.</p>
<p>^ Thanks.</p>
<p>It turns out the schedule is like this:
Aug. 26: pick up
Sept 3: arrive at the destination terminal
Sept 8: the car will be delivered.</p>
<p>Sept 8 is also the estimated delivery day that the company told us originally.</p>
<p>Are we expected to pay tips when we receive the car?</p>
<p>Also, I learned from the Internet that the shipper (the company is das) may deflate the pressure of the tires to 20-25-ish psi during the shipping. Have you ever heard that some auto shipper may do something like this? (And do not inflate the tire pressure back to the original value.)</p>
<p>Never heard of the shipper deflating tires and not re-inflating. In fact, never heard of shipper deflating at all in any of the cars we’ve shipped. Don’t believe either of my kids tipped the shipper or deliverer with their vehicles as we paid a lot of money to the company and didn’t feel inclined to pay extra.</p>