Questions to Ask When Touring an Apartment
The guided tour is the version of the apartment the leasing agent controls. These twenty questions are for everything after it: what to ask residents you meet by the mailboxes, what to go back and look at on a second visit at a different hour, and what to get in writing by email before you hand over an application fee. The questions for the tour itself are in the questions to ask when touring an apartment set.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How long have you lived here, and are you planning to renew?
Why ask it
Ask this of anyone you meet in the lobby or by the mailboxes. Someone who has stayed four years and intends to stay a fifth has told you more in one sentence than an hour of tour did, and someone who hesitates has told you something too.
What takes the longest to get fixed around here?
Why ask it
Residents answer this readily because it is a shared grievance rather than an accusation. The specific example, the elevator, the hot water on the top floors, the laundry card machine, is the part you cannot get from management.
What is this building like at night?
Why ask it
The tour happened at eleven in the morning. Ask about weekend nights, early deliveries, the hallway, and whether the front door is ever propped open, because those are the hours you will actually be home.
Has your rent gone up at renewal, and by roughly how much?
Why ask it
Residents will often give you a real figure where a leasing office gives you a range. Two renewals in a row at a steep increase tells you what your second year here costs, which is the number that decides whether you can stay.
Is there anything you wish you had asked before you moved in?
Why ask it
This is the single most useful question you can put to a current tenant, because it invites them to hand you their own regret. Whatever they name, go and check it yourself before you apply.
Do packages stay where the courier leaves them?
Why ask it
A resident will tell you plainly whether things go missing, and the answer arrives with a shrug or a story. Both are more reliable than a leasing agent describing a package policy.
How is the heat in winter and the cooling in summer, really?
Why ask it
Ask someone on the same side of the building and ideally the same floor, since a top-floor unit facing west is a different apartment in August. If they mention a space heater or a window unit, that is your utility bill talking.
What are the neighbors like on this floor?
Why ask it
You are asking about the thing that most often makes people break a lease, from the one group of people who cannot be scripted. A pause before the answer is worth as much as the answer.
Would you rent here again, knowing what you know now?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and accept whatever comes. It is the closest thing to a review from someone who has no reason to sell you anything and no reason to exaggerate.
Can I come back on a weekday evening and walk the building on my own?
Why ask it
The response is the answer. A place with nothing to manage says yes without thinking, and ten minutes in a lobby at six in the evening shows you noise, parking and neighbors that no tour will.
Would you mind if I stood in the empty unit alone for ten minutes?
Why ask it
Silence in an apartment with nobody talking at you is where you hear the elevator motor, the trash chute, the road and the upstairs floorboards. It is also when you notice smells that a running extractor fan was hiding.
Can I see the laundry room, the bin store and the parking area at a normal hour?
Why ask it
These are shown briskly at midday when they look their best. Come back at seven in the evening or on a Sunday morning, when the machines are full and the parking is not.
Is the unit above this one occupied, and by whom?
Why ask it
Ask on the second visit, once you are past the sales pitch. An empty apartment above during your tour is a quiet apartment that may not stay quiet, and the answer also tells you how closely the building is managed.
Can I test the water pressure and the hot water again, later in the day?
Why ask it
Morning and evening are when the building's plumbing is under load, and that is when pressure problems appear. Running the shower at seven in the evening tells you something a midday test cannot.
Can you send me the fee schedule and a blank copy of the lease today?
Why ask it
Ask for both in the follow-up email, before you pay anything. Buildings that send them within a day have nothing buried, and a refusal at this stage is itself the answer to a question you did not have to ask.
Can you put in writing what will be repaired, replaced or cleaned before I move in?
Why ask it
Everything promised on a tour evaporates at signing unless it is on paper. Ask for a dated addendum listing each item, because we will take care of that is not something you can hold anyone to in November.
Can you confirm by email the rent, the term and every recurring charge for this exact unit?
Why ask it
Numbers quoted aloud have a way of moving between the tour and the lease. An email that names the unit number, the monthly total and the lease length gives you something to compare against the document you are asked to sign.
Since the tour, has anything changed about the unit, the price or the availability?
Why ask it
Ask again a few days later. Units get held, prices get cut when a vacancy drags, and concessions appear at the end of a month, none of which anyone will call you to mention.
If I need a couple of days to decide, will you hold it, and what does holding it cost me?
Why ask it
Establish whether a holding deposit is refundable and at what point it stops being refundable, because that line usually falls earlier than applicants assume. Knowing the date is what lets you keep a second option alive.
Looking back at the tour, is there anything you would want to know if you were renting here?
Why ask it
Asked by email after the fact, away from the queue and the performance, this sometimes gets a straight answer. What they choose to mention, and whether they mention anything at all, is worth more than the reply itself.
What Happens After the Guided Tour
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Talking to People Who Already Live There
- 1Linger by the mailboxes or the laundry room, which is where residents are unhurried and willing to talk.
- 2Open with how long they have lived there rather than with a complaint, so the conversation is not a trap.
- 3Ask one specific question rather than what is it like here, which gets a polite non-answer.
- 4Note whether several people independently name the same problem, which is the only reliable signal you will get.
- 5Thank them and leave it there. One short conversation is worth more than an interrogation nobody wanted.
Timing the Second Visit
- Go back on a weekday evening or a weekend night, and park where you would actually park.
- Walk the block once and note what is open late and what is shuttered.
- Ride or drive the commute at the hour you would really do it, not at ten in the morning.
- Stand in the corridor outside the unit and listen for cooking smells, televisions and doors.
- Look at the parking area, the bins and the laundry when they are in use rather than staged.
The Follow-Up Email Before You Apply
- Put every number you were told in the email and ask them to confirm it, which turns memory into a record.
- Ask for the fee schedule, a blank lease and the house rules as attachments.
- List the repairs you were promised and ask for them as a dated addendum.
- Ask what portion of the application and holding money is refundable and until when.
- Send it the same day, while the tour is fresh and while you are still a candidate they want.