The Apartment Hunt: Mérida
January 29th, 2010

Mérida -- Searching for an apartment is always a hunt, but especially here in hip and edgy Mérida, especially when your prime location is on the other side of a student riot.

Nicholas Hall began his search with a conversation at an unlikely event: a meet-and-greet between American students and Venezuelans who want to meet American students. The date was set for Monday morning, and then the search was on.

Nicholas was looking to move up from his current digs, where he’s lived since he arrived in the city a week ago. A room in a large house in the northern quarter, the old place was always meant to be a starter home, and he was ready to move on by the end of the month.

The first location, a swank, geriatrically-decorated three-bedroom, two-bath in a heavily guarded community compound proved just a little too rich, and Nicholas thought he could bring the price down. Playing a little hardball never hurts when swimming with the sharks of real estate, and playing like you don’t understand any of the words they’re using to up-sell you on a ridiculous place can take you a long way, as our Hunter learned.

Moving on to a fresh first-floor apartment in an active student neighborhood, our hunter and his de facto realtor encountered something unexpected and exciting: The local student scene out and looking engaged, in violent political protest, wearing interesting masks, swirling molotov cocktails, passionately sharing views on social matters.

These signs of local culture left Nick almost sold, along with the miniscule rent and single bus to his school, and he signaled that he was ready to close a deal, in a couple days when he had confirmed with others that the miniscule rent was sufficiently miniscule.

After some research and market-comparisons, Nick was ready to move forward, and informed his self-defined realtor. The conversation then turned to payment transaction methods, and that’s when things got really interesting.

Tune in to the next installment of the Hunt to find out the smart inside-game on how to pay for shit here.