Featured Apartment:
Portland NO FEE - Portland Winchester Apartment Homes combine a professional, yet relaxing atmosphere in a convenient downtown location. Situated between downtown Portland and Vancouver, we are just minutes away from freeway access, Portland's finest dining, shopping, and an abundance of cultural and sporting activities. Residents can choose from one of our spacious studio, one or two bedroom floor plans, which include air conditioning, covered parking and patios/balconies. We also offer other amenities like BBQ grills, Tennis Courts, Hot Tub, Fitness Center, and a Clubhouse. We are a Pet Friendly Community too! Call today to schedule your on-site appointment. View More Listings -->
Renting an Apartment in Beaverton
What You Should Know
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles
west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley. As of May 2006, its population is
estimated to be 83,097, 9.1% more than the 2000 census figure of 76,129. This
makes it the largest city in the county and Oregon's fifth largest city.
Beaverton's controversial annexation plans during the next decade are likely to
result in major growth in both population and area.
According to Oregon Geographic Names, Beaverton got its name because of the
settlement's proximity to a large body of water resulting from beaver dams.
The area of Tualatin Valley which became Beaverton was originally the home of
a Native American tribe known as the Atfalati or the Tualatin. They were
hunter-gatherers whose land including a village that was called Chakeipi,
meaning Place of the Beaver. The Atfalati population dwindled in the latter part
of the 18th century, and the prosperous tribe was no longer dominant in the area
by the 19th century when westerners first visited.
Since 1929, Beaverton has been home to Beaverton Foods, a manufacturer of
nationally-distributed condiments. Reser's Fine Foods, processor and distributor
of fresh prepared foods, has headquartered in Beaverton since 1960.
Beaverton is home to the world headquarters of Nike. Its headquarters are
located on an unincorporated parcel of land inside, but excluded from, the
Beaverton city limits.
Beaverton is also home to the headquarters of Columbia Sportswear, which is
located next to Sunset High School.
More recently, Beaverton is the headquarters of Tektronix, which manufactures
electronics including oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.
As part of the Silicon Forest, Beaverton is the home of the Open Source
Development Labs and the Linux Technology Center of IBM (formerly Sequent
Computer Systems).
The public schools of Beaverton are part of the Beaverton School District.
Private schools in the area include German American School, Holy Trinity School,
Jesuit High School, The Portland Academy, Saint Cecilia Grade School, Saint
Mary's Academy, Saint Mary's Grade School, Southwest Christian School, Valley
Catholic High School, Valley Catholic Middle School, and WoodHaven School.
Post-secondary education is offered by OGI School of Science and Engineering
(part of OHSU), Cambridge College (part of High Tech Institute), Magee Brothers
Beaverton School of Beauty, and extended campus programs from Portland State
University. Beaverton is also home to OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research
Center, one of the largest federally funded primate labs in the country.
Basic Apartment Information
An apartment (or flat in Britain and most other Commonwealth countries) is a
self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Apartments
may be owned (by an owner-occupier) or rented (by tenants).
Some apartment-dwellers own their apartments, either as co-ops, in which the
residents own shares of a corporation that owns the building or development; or
in condominiums, whose residents own their apartments and share ownership of the
public spaces. Most apartments are in buildings designed for the purpose, but
large older houses are sometimes divided into apartments. The word apartment
connotes a residential unit or section in a building. Apartment building owners,
lessors, or managers often use the more general word units to refer to
apartments. Units can be used to refer to rental business suites as well as
residential apartments. When there is no tenant occupying an apartment, the
lessor is said to have a vacancy. For apartment lessors, each vacancy represents
a loss of income from rent-paying tenants for the time the apartment is vacant
(i.e., unoccupied). Lessors' objectives are often to minimize the vacancy rate
for their units. The owner of the apartment typically transfers possession to
the occupant by giving him/her the key to the apartment entrance door and any
other keys need to live there, such as a common key to the building or any other
common areas, and an individual unit mailbox key. When the occupant move out,
these keys should typically be returned to the owner.
Apartments can be classified into several types. Studio, efficiency, bed-sit, or
bachelor apartments tend to be the smallest apartments with the cheapest rents
in a given area. These kinds of apartment usually consist mainly of a large room
which is the living, dining, and bedroom combined. There are usually kitchen
facilities as part of this central room, but the bathroom is its own smaller
separate room. Moving up from the efficiencies are one-bedroom apartments where
one bedroom is a separate room from the rest of the apartment. Then there are
two-bedroom, three-bedroom, etc. apartments. Small apartments often have only
one entrance/exit. Large apartments often have two entrances/exits, perhaps a
door in the front and another in the back. Depending on the building design, the
entrance/exit doors may be directly to the outside or to a common area inside,
such as a hallway. Depending on location, apartments may be available for rent
furnished with furniture or unfurnished into which a tenant usually moves in
with his/her own furniture. Permanent carpeting is often included in an
apartment.
Laundry facilities are usually kept in a separate area accessible to all the
tenants in the building. Depending on when the building was built and the design
of the building, utilities such as water, heating, and electric may be common
for all the apartments in the building or separate for each apartment and billed
separately to each tenant (however, many areas in the US have ruled it illegal
to split a water bill among all the tenants, especially if a pool is on the
premises). Outlets for connection to telephones are typically included in
apartments. Telephone service is optional and is practically always billed
separately from the rent payments. Cable television and similar amenities are
extra also. Parking space, air conditioner, and extra storage space may or may
not be included with an apartment. Rental leases often limit the maximum number
of people who can reside in each apartment. On or around the ground floor of the
apartment building, a series of mailboxes are typically kept in a location
accessible to the public and, thus, to the letter-carrier too. Every unit
typically gets its own mailbox with individual keys to it. Some very large
apartment buildings with a full-time staff may take mail from the mailman and
provide mail-sorting service. Near the mailboxes or some other location
accessible by outsiders, there may be a buzzer (equivalent to a doorbell) for
each individual unit. In smaller apartment buildings such as two- or
three-flats, or even four-flats, garbage is often disposed of in trash
containers similar to those used at houses. In larger buildings, garbage is
often collected in a common trash bin or dumpster. For cleanliness or minimizing
noise, many lessors will place restrictions on tenants regarding keeping pets in
an apartment.
In some parts of the world, the word apartment is used generally to refer to a
new purpose-built self-contained residential unit in a building, whereas the
word flat means a converted self-contained unit in an older building. An
industrial, warehouse, or commercial space converted to an apartment is commonly
called a loft.
When part of a house is converted for the ostensible use of a landlord's family
member, the unit may be known as an in-law apartment or granny flat, though
these (sometimes illegally) created units are often occupied by ordinary renters
rather than family members. In Canada these suites are commonly located in the
basements of houses and are therefore normally called basement suites.
Staying in privately owned apartments rather than in a hotel is quickly becoming
popular with travelers.