Finding a new roommate is a tricky business. Your goal is to find someone reliable and easy to live with, but this is often hard to know before they actually move in. If you make the wrong decision, you could be spending the next several months or years in a very uncomfortable living situation. To keep this from happening, here are some tips you can use to find the best roommate if you’re living in Florida.
Know What You’re Looking For
Before you start your search, you should take some time to think about what it is you’re actually looking for. Are you looking for a roommate that’s a man or woman? Do you want someone that’s quiet and stays at home or someone who is more extroverted and likes to host parties? How neat do they need to be?
These are just some of the important questions you should ask yourself before you start your roommate search. As you’re thinking about it, you should also consider which attributes are the most important. How essential is it that your roommate cleans up after they cook, or doesn’t play their music late at night? Thinking about this now will let you know what areas you are willing to compromise on and which ones you aren’t.
Search Multiple Sources
When looking for a roommate in Florida, you should explore as many avenues as possible. The wider you cast your net, the better chance you have at finding the best roommate. You can start by letting your friends and family know that you are looking for a roommate, as they may know someone else looking for a place to live.
Besides that, you should also post online your desire for a new roommate. Some great places to post about this include Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, and RoomMatch.com. If you don’t hear anything back on your ads within a few days, you should repost it so that it continues to stay near the top of people’s social feeds and the search results.
Screen Potential Candidates
After you let your personal network know you need a roommate, and post about it online, you’ll likely start to hear back from some candidates. Once you start seeing some names coming in, you should do some initial research on them. Typing a person’s name and current state can often reveal some basic information about them that will help you narrow down your candidates.
For example, you could look up each person on Facebook and try to learn a little more about them. Or you could find them on LinkedIn and see what kind of job they have. Doing some initial screening is particularly useful if you are getting a lot of interest in the apartment and you need a way to narrow down your choices.
Conduct a Good Interview
Once you have your candidates down to a select few, you can begin to get to know them a little better. Invite them over to the apartment and show them around the place. Use the list of attributes you created earlier to direct your questioning towards them. Look to see if there are any major red flags that you might have missed in your initial screening.
During this first introduction, it’s also important to remember that this person is trying to decide whether or not they want to live with you. They will likely have questions about both the apartment and yourself, so be ready to answer them. Finding the best roommate doesn’t just mean the person that best fits your needs – you also have to fit their own.
Be Flexible
Finally, it’s important that you remain flexible throughout this process. No matter how long you search, you may not find the perfect roommate candidate. At some point, you will need to settle for the best person you can find, even if they don’t meet all the requirements you had in mind. It’s better to have a roommate with some slightly annoying tendencies than to have to pay the rent alone for several months while you search for someone better.
Living with a stranger can be uncomfortable, which is why it’s important that you start off on the right foot. By taking the time to think about what you’re looking for in a roommate, then doing a thorough search to find them, you can improve your odds that you end up with someone you like. And who knows, maybe if you conduct your search well-enough, you could end up making a great new friend in the process.
Finding a great roommate match
A great way to find a roommate or a home that fits your lifestyle is RoomMatch.com. RoomMatch works much like a dating site where users answer questions and then see their match percentages with others. This means you know ahead of time if you’re moving into the party home or the quiet home.