News on Youtube Sep 27 2017

Hey guys! Yep, I know! Don't tell me! Shame on me!

I've been a very nasty girl here on Youtube lately, I kow

but let's move on, cause you know, that's not a drama movie so

I'm pretty sure you're here for content and let's go!

Well the last time that I talked to you guys I was in Muscatine. You guys remember right? In Iowa!

But now I live in North Liberty, it's another city

Yep, we moved to another city and that's why I'm here today

- to share how it is to rent a house here in the USA, from the moment we started browsing a house on the web

to the day we finally moved. I'm also gonna talk about costs, curiosities, processes and much more.

Just one point: all the information that I'm providing here is related to Iowa, ok?

General rules and prices may vary a lot from state to state.

Well this video is all in English but you can active the subtitles below, either in Portuguese or English

If it's your first time in the channel, please don't forget to subscribe

and don't forget to share this video with your friends. I'm pretty sure they're going to enjoy it as well!

So the first question: Why did we decide to move?

You guys know that I love Muscatine, it's a very beautiful city, a small city but a very beautiful city

but the point is, Tuca - Tuca is my husband - so Tuca and I used to live in an apartment

It was just a two-story apartment but it was an apartment and that's the first reason:

We really wanted to live in a house. Yeah, with a nice garden, a yard, a nice garage...

and I'm gonna add some other extra facts that we were considering when moving to another place

Our car used to be parked off-street. Well, it's ok most of the times but

when it's hailing, it might damage your car if the stones are too big - or even worse, when it's snowing.

So a garage would be nice! Another point: where we lived there was not a single window in the kitchen

so, I don't know... just grill/fry - whatever - a steak and you'll have a foggy house

and a crazy fire alarm screaming to the moon and back. I mean, really out loud.

You get desperate. I don't know if you have ever heard but I'll try to find a video and put it in here

And the last reason is regarding the bathtub. If you don't know, when you take a shower here in the US

most of the houses have a bathtub and a plastic shower curtain.

Once again that's very different to me since in Brazil, back in Brazil, I used to take a shower in boxes.

Guys I'm not complaning ok? I'm just telling you why we decided to move because here in the house where we're living

we could find all these things. But everything was great, everything was amazing, wonderful.

There was nothing I would complain like, for a second about the house where I lived. I'm serious and I mean it.

Actually I'm very very thankful for the whole opportunity I had in that house and now in this one so please, don't get me wrong ok? :)

And you might say that I'm being very picky and I don't know maybe I am but I'd like to share with you like friends you know...

the reason that we considered when moving to another house. And I guess that's normal, we always want something better.

One more point: it was summer - actually now it's fall, fall has just started - but it was summer

and we realized we could have some extra benefits like having a yard, we could grill, call some friends, have a party...

have a garden to grow all my flowers and herbs, you know, more space!

Ok so where do we usually find houses to rent? Basically on the web

You know, home owners also advertise on local newspapers but most people search on the web, on facebook groups,

realtor websites, I don't know and things related to that.

And Erika, now the question that I wanna know is: How much is it to rent a house in Iowa?

So just out of curiosity, if you're planning to rent a house with like, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a laundry, a living room...

You're gonna pay aroung $1,000 - actually it might range from $800 to $1,200 + utilities

Now if you wanna add an extra bedroom, a garage and probably more space, you'll pay from $1,200 to $2,000 + utilities

Erika, you're saying UTILITIES, UTILITIES... WHAT ARE UTILITIES?

Guys, utilities are: GAS + ELECTRICITY +WATER + TRASH AND RECYCLING + whatever you wish like INTERNET / CABLE TV

Guys, that was just a guesstimate to rent a house here, in a small city, here in Iowa.

Have you ever hear of that expression: GUESSTIMATE? You know I love sharing a different vocabulary with you all, right?

It's a GUESS and an ESTIMATE of something. A very very very common word or expression if you prefer to call it like that

here in the US so you'd better memorize it! So going back to the story...

Our friend Marcelo Bahia was browsing the web, he was trying to find a house for us as well.

He knew what we wanted, the budget we had, by the way THANK YOU again Bahia, you're such a good friend!

And actually he found the house where I am living right now! Now I'll tell you something very very funny:

The day we came to visit the house, you know, I got so in love with the space especially because the remodelled the house

that I wanted to sign the leasing the same day of the visit. I basically asked the landlord:

"Ok so what's the next step? I mean, where do I sign?" and Tuca looked at me like:

"Aren't going to talk to me and ask my opinion? - but he liked the house of course!

But there's a process to rent a house. It's not like "Ok, I liked the house, where do I sign? Can I move tomorrow" No it's not like that

It's pretty different at least from Brazil and that's the next question I'm going to answer:

What is the process to rent a house? Again, here in Iowa! First of all, again you don't need a guarantor to rent a house

You have to pay a safe deposit. Ok so What is a safe deposit? Well the safe deposit it is the same amount as your rent

and you pay it previously or with your first rent. When your leasing finishes and you decide to move to another house and everything

is ok with the house, if you haven't broken anything, the landlord will give all your money back, I mean your safe deposit

Second: when you decide you want to move to the house, you want to rent the house, you have to fill an application

I'll just leave an application so you can have an ideia of what it is and in our case, with the application we paid $60

This money was used to check our credit history and also our background. Well, if approved you can proceed to talk about

and then sign the leasing contract. Once you have the contract on your hands, you gotta read it thoroughly

Yeah, you gotta make sure that you agree with everything the landlord is saying on the contract. Everything he/she is considering.

After signing it, the landlord will tell you when the house is free to go and that's it! You just rent a U-HAUL and you move to the new house

In our case we didn't rent a U-HAUL. Yeah, we thought it would be available, would be there for us at the day that we moved

but actually we should have booked it like, some weeks before so at the day that we decided to move there was no one left

Thank God again we have friends, so our friend Mateus has a truck and Bahia came to help us three.

and everything thank god was perfect. So Mateus once again thank you so much for helping us that day, Bahia and Mateus thank you!

So guys I guess I covered all the topics that I was supposed to speak today

If you wanna follow a little bit of my routine here in North Liberty, just follow me on Instagram

if you wanna also practice your English 'cause I also speak a lot of English in there

but guys I really hope you have enjoyed this video. Don't forget to like my video because it really motivates me

and it also helps to spread the information. Ok guys? So on Thursday we're gonna have another video and I'm pretty sure

you're gonna like that one. Stay tuned. Take care of yourselves guys and see you on Thursday. Bye!