q: What is better to rent, a house or an apartment? What are your personal pros and cons?
a: kinda depends on what youre wanting. an apartment will give you less space and more immediate neighbors, but you wont have any yard or sidewalks to take care of and wont have to do really any maintenance yourself. with a house you could have a yard (that you also might have to take care of though) and potentially more space, but you might have to deal with more maintenance issues yourself. personally, i prefer houses at this point, because i just seem to have a bad neighbour curse, lmao. id say look for both just to keep your options broader and go from there.

q: Is the application process for renting a house any different than renting an apartment? If so, how?
a: itll depend more on the company than the property in my experience. the application process has been the same for all the apartments and houses ive looked at, though all the houses were duplexes (idk how much that affects anything)

q: Have you ever looked for a place out-of-state? Do you have any advice on how to go about this?
We plan on visiting the place and looking at stuff ourselves at some point, but we'd still be doing it mostly remotely, and neither of us have really had to do that before (any time I've looked for places it was local).
a: yes; plan out a time to go look and keep an eye on rentals in your budget and beds/baths for like a month beforehand to see how things are popping up and disappearing. thatll give you an idea of where the higher demand neighborhoods are. when you actually get there, just get an apartment finder like apartments.com or zillow (personally id recommend the former over the latter) and stop in at all the ones that look good for what you want. you should be able to get a tour then or schedule one in the immediate future to actually see the place! (this is assuming apartment complexes anyway; houses/duplexes/etc youll probably need to call ahead since they wont have on-site management/offices)

q: What are some general tips and tricks you can personally give on finding a place?
When I've looked in the past, our priority was asking about crime rates in the area, but I'd like to know if there's other very important questions to ask or things to look for.
a: pay close attention to the exterior of the building, ESPECIALLY the side that faces away from the road. if theres a noticeable difference between the upkeep of the road-side and back-side of the building that isnt a great sign (they might care more about appearance than maintenance). pay attention to the condition of the windows and blinds/drapes too. window screens and blinds are easy and cheap to replace, so if its not being done, thats a sign of neglect on the management/maintenance part. check inside cabinets (especially under sinks) for water damage. check bathroom grout for mold (again, relatively easy fix, that they have no reason not to). these are all pretty easy ways to see how the general upkeep of the place is. always look for the stuff thats easier and cheaper to fix! landscaping can be worth looking at too. it doesnt have to be pretty per se, but it should be tended to. ask if management and maintenance are on or off site. this could go either way, but obviously its better if theyre on site.

for crime, you can check out https://www.crimemapping.com/ - its... kinda scary sometimes though LMAO. but i mean, shit happens that you wont necessarily even notice, so take it with a grain of salt i guess? thats the hard part.

q: What is the best, most affordable way to move? (long-distance)
Rent a Uhaul? Just make a bunch of trips in cars over an extended period? Hire professional movers?
a: professional movers are gonna be exponentially more expensive the further youre going. if you have something larger than a car see if it can pull a uhaul trailer. you might have to have a hitch installed but it could still end up being cheaper. (last time i moved, my dad got a hitch for his SUV- it was like $140 for the hitch and $240 for the trailer, as opposed to the van that would been like $500 something. and you keep the hitch!) if you have multiple cars you could see about making a trip or two each, but that also begs into question if everything you have will fit into the cars and what you want to take and leave behind.

q: Do you have any horror stories you can tell?
a: take pictures of everything when you move in. EVERYTHING. and the second anything goes wrong, document it. take more pictures. dont let shitty contractors hired by management flood your house and then have your rental company try to sue YOU for the damages LMAO. (on that note- threaten to counter sue. theyll probably settle or just drop it. theyre just trying to scare you. :^) )

q: Any extremely good stories?
a: my current apartment was nice before, but we got a new manager about a year ago and he immediately started putting work and updates to just about everything. hes come to talk to us personally every time theres been an issue, including really minor things that he seriously wouldnt have needed to trouble himself with. the head of maintenance is wonderful too- theres been a ton of construction in my city for the last year and its been causing a lot of problems, but hes been making rounds to check on things and fix anything that got messed up on his own before people can even get to calling it in. this apartment complex is a little more on the more expensive end for the area of the city its in but it comes through. after living here im more willing to pay a little more rent to avoid a shitty management company tbh.

SORRY THIS GOT WAY LONG DGHJDFKL ive been to virginia too but not to roanoke or blacksburg or around there specifically. but it was really nice. SO green and the people we encountered were all super nice :D my roommates parents live out in the country somewhere in virginia too (no idea where lmao) and they love it there. lots of good hiking if youre into that kinda thing

HOLY hell this is even more massive now that ive submitted it im so sorry lmao

NO IT'S FINE! Every single one of your answers were insanely helpful! You gave us so much info we never would have thought of (especially in regards to checking the smaller conditions of the house. That didn't cross my mind!)

HA! We used the crime tracker and it was definitely scary... but helpful! Kind of hilarious, too, because our current city is INSANELY crime-ridden but it was conveniently not attached to the site system. I wonder whyyyy :) The site also reminded us to check out WatchDog and we instantly kicked one house off our list because an offender lived next door LOL OH NO.

Thank you so much! This was super helpful and we appreciate it!!

Drunkdriver up above said everything that needed be to said. I can't think of a single thing to add to it. I do live in VA, but not the nicer parts you're thinking of moving to nor have I ever been through there either. I hope everything goes well. :3

GASP Runzu you exist again!!
Thank you also!