Good Apartment Hunting

Well, the biggest headache we have been enduring may be coming to a close. Our search for temporary furnished housing to carry us until we secure our permanent apartment. On the first Wednesday we were here, I went with a service person to look at three apartments to consider. All 3 were nice enough, with 1 standing above the other 2. The price was just out of range of what the "company" would allow due to the utilities not being included. So, I told the agent this information. She said she would talk to the owner to see if they would include utilities. She came back saying they would include the utilities. In the meantime, we learned of another problem. The "company" was covering 3 months in temporary housing and we would be in the hotel for two weeks, so the lease for the temporary place would have to be for 2 months and 2 weeks. But the rental periods would be for 3 months and the owner wouldn't budge, so we told the agency providing the service we would have to keep looking. Ah...but here comes the fun. Apparently over here, when a prospective renter says there's a problem and an owner fixes that problem, it is a verbal agreement and we were bound (or so we were told) and have made a deal. It was several phone conversations later, carrying a strong tone and flatly expressing that there is no deal and the issue was closed, before we moved on. Verbal contracts carry a lot of weight here I'm told, at least under these circumstances. Since that matter was cleared up, I viewed another 3 properties that were not as nice as the first 3 I viewed a week earlier. One I saw today has real possibilities and I'm scheduled to see 4 more Monday starting at noon. If all goes well, we should be in bigger quarters by mid-week. Unfortunately, this segment has been more complicated then viewing 6 places and picking the one that suits us best for the next 3 months! It appears we are close to wrapping this up and we'll be out of the hotel soon!!