Apartment Hunting

So once again I'm looking for an apartment or I should really say, my fiancee and I are looking for an apartment for when we are married. Due to the fact that our jobs reside on opposite ends of this massive city, we're forced to look somewhere in between, which is about the Culver City/Palms area. I've noticed a few things after our tiring search through this area this weekend.

1. The term "luxurious" is very broad. What defines luxury anyway?
a. You could park your car on the street OR you can have a luxurious parking spot (sometimes with a gate!)
b. You could have a building surrounded by concrete OR you can have a luxurious dead tree in your front yard!
c. You could have an apartment with dirty carpet OR you can have a luxurious one with steam cleaned (yet still looks dirty) carpet.

2. There must be a law in Palms that says you must have a fat man with no shirt hosing off his sidewalk on every block.

One of these "gentleman" had a conversation with us:
Shirtless Guy: Hey, you looking for an apartment?
Me: Yes.
SG: For like a million dollars, right?
Me: Yeah, something like that.
SG: Welcome to California! (laughs all sinister)
Me: Thanks.

Haha, so weird.

3. There are pretty much 3 categories for apartments in Palms: Crappy, not as crappy as the crappy, and ridiculously expensive. All 3 categories use the word "luxurious".

4. I wonder which word the truly luxurious apartments use? I think if I owned one I'd use the word "radical".

5. The inventor of the carport is probably a jillionaire.

For the most part, the people we encountered were friendly. This one lady saw that we wanted to get into a building to look at a place but we couldn't get in. This lady saw that we were trying to get in and told us the code and let us in and showed us around. Turned out she wasn't the manager, but she just lived there and wanted a good neighbor, haha. The manager still hasn't called us back.

At this other place, there was an open house to see the apartment. When we got there at the appointed time, there were about 5 other people waiting to look at the place. I was thinking "great, competition". Then the owner shows up and it's this little Chinese man. He takes one look at J and says "Are you Chinese?"
J: Yes.
Owner guy: Where are you from?
J: Well, I'm from here, my parents are from China?
Owner guy: What part?
J: Canton
Owner guy: Ah, I'm from Taiwan.

I thought we were a shoe-in for that place since no one else there was Chinese, but J was skeptical because he was from Taiwan, haha. But then when he found out we were both professionals, he ignored everyone else in the room, haha. It fell through though cuz we needed two parking spaces. He only had one available, but he was willing to let me park on the grass, haha! I declined. I guess he hasn't had many professionals for tenants.

Well, after a long weekend of searching, we have high hopes for an apartment we haven't even seen. Sure we could afford a much better area and a much nicer apartment, but we're trying to save for a home of our own. How much longer can I put up with this real estate joke called California? This is truly the area of my life where God is testing me. Pray for us.