Neil Fjellestad

President- Fjellestad, Barrett and Short
Real Estate Advisory Board – SDSU College of Business

"Nearly half of all the housing in San Diego is offered for rent. This condition has existed locally for decades and will continue for the foreseeable future. It is imperative that rental owners and rental residents respect the other for their important role in this essential segment of our local economy. The more informed each are about their respective rights and responsibilities as well as changes in the marketplace the more realistic are the expectations. That just makes good sense. We'll call it Rent Sense."

-Neil Fjellestad

Rent Sense: Making an Informed Rental Choice

By Neil Fjellestad
President – Fjellestad, Barrett & Short
Real Estate Advisory Board – SDSU College of Business

Nearly half the housing in San Diego is offered for rent. If your financial and/or lifestyle requirements are best met by renting, you need to make an informed choice. Here’s why:

Especially in today’s economy, you need to be value conscious and price sensitive about all your expenditures; rent is normally your largest one.
The rental decisions you make will affect the rest of your lifestyle: transportation, schools, shopping, entertainment, access to friends and family.
Good rental decisions need information and alternatives. Utilize personal networks, public information and professional guidance.
Rental decisions are long-term and not modified without consequences.

Now let’s take a closer look at the elements of an informed rental choice. There are three main areas to evaluate that will be of great help in determining the best solution for your housing needs:

Budget
Property Type
Neighborhood

BUDGET

If your existing or potential rent is more than one-third of your income or your total household expense (including rent plus utilities, renter’s insurance, yard care, etc.) is more than 40% of your budget, you have a budget problem.

This doesn’t mean that the rental owner, operator or property manager will deny you the rental choice you want; they are motivated and within their rights to accept your application and demand the rent when due.

Nevertheless, you have a budget problem. If not now then later; what are you going to do about it? Here are some options:

Shop for rental choices within your means.
Modify and control other expenses to compensate if necessary.
Change your lifestyle to deal with the reality.
Look at other housing options such subletting a room, roommate(s) or house-sharing.

TYPE

Which type of property do you want to rent? Locally, a wide range of options exist, including –

Many individual detached single houses. Individual condos within most condominium communities.Several homes or townhomes on a common lot. Duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes, often with a small yard and parking to share.Numerous small apartment buildings throughout the city of San Diego and within older surrounding municipalities. Generally, these rental buildings have fewer than 16 apartments and do not provide a fulltime resident manager onsite. Most mid-size and large apartment communities are garden-style, with buildings between 2-4 stories, spread around a large parcel of land that is pulled together with common grounds, amenities and onsite parking. There are a growing number of residential mid- and high-rise apartment buildings providing concierge services and a calendar of activities.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each of these property types. Visit and/or survey friends and relatives that live in rental circumstances that are similar to what you are considering. Learn from their experiences before you make a decision. Personal networks can be important when making an informed rental choice.

NEIGHBORHOOD

San Diego is a large, sprawling metropolitan area composed of interdependent municipalities, villages, communities and neighborhoods. Each of these creates different access to public services, special activities, shopping and entertainment options. Local schools and libraries are not only important resources, but reflections of the neighborhood as well. Regional land-use planning envisions San Diego as interconnected “urban villages” with marketable personalities. Currently, neighborhood personality is much more subtle in many parts of San Diego. Nevertheless, neighborhood is an important part of an informed rental choice. Here are some suggestions:

Learn ZIP codes. Though a hands-on approach to neighborhood selection is required the Internet is an inescapable tool of choice when it comes to initial pre-selection. Recently major local search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are breaking away from navigating San Diego as one destination. In some cases there is an attempt to isolate traditional subheadings such as Mission Valley or Downtown which has been used for many years in local classified advertising. My belief is that this is temporary and will give way to zip codes.
Search engines are now indexing for zip codes and this will become the standard protocol for Internet visitors for most goods and services, especially in housing searches. There are currently 87 zip codes in the San Diego metro region.
Utilize Internet directories and portals to establish parameters to your rental search and learn about neighborhoods of interest. Again, the traditional directory navigation of North County Inland, South County, etc. will evolve into zip codes with neighborhood options within these respective zip codes.
There are statistical profiles available indexed by zip code. Try http://www.factfinder.census.gov.
There are excellent resources for schools and libraries indexed by zip code. Try http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/.
Safety is always a concern and there are resource sites that can help. Try http://mapping.arjis.org/.

Making an informed rental choice takes time and effort so plan accordingly. Important decisions made prudently will last longer, create personal value and cause less stress.