House hunting Day 1

I just returned this past week from a 3-day trip to DC to find an apartment. I had it narrowed down to 2 complexes after extensive, exhaustive research! I had my list of "Must-haves" such as garage parking, washer-dryer in unit, near Metro, and a list of "Nice-To-Haves" such as non-smoking building, walk-in closet, reserved parking, den, additional storage. I arrived in DC around 11:30PM, after flying into Baltimore and picking up a rental car there. Since I will be working evenings, I wanted to drive around these neighborhoods at the time of night when I will be coming home to see how they look that time of day. Everything is lovely in the daytime, right? I really liked the area on the west side of Arlington Cemetery, which was near Courthouse Metro Station. It was a nice walkable community with lots of little restaurants and shops. I was not as crazy about the area around Pentagon City mall. When I went just 1-2 streets over, the feeling was not so safe and there were some sketchier-appearing people around. Armed with this info, I went to my hotel and promptly fell asleep :) Day 1: I started with the complex in the area near Courthouse. I'd narrowed it down to the perfect apartment... but while I was out getting a tour, that one perfect floor plan was snatched up. :-( It was certainly a shock to see how small these apartments were in real life. I guess the imagine in my mind that I'd created was much larger. 700 square feet is not very big! It was hard picturing my furniture fitting in any of these places, so it was pretty discouraging. Once I realized nothing at that complex was going to work for me, I headed over to Pentagon City to check out two complexes there. Those were fairly new, and I found one apartment that was a "maybe", but ... I guess I just couldn't get excited about having a view of a mall and a Costco. I'll be in DC ... I can get those views anywhere! I wanted a little neighborhood with shops and restaurants and a little personality. I went over to Georgetown and looked at a condo for rent there. Awful -- teeny kitchen, no W/D in unit, laundry is in the hot, dark basement. It was just a creepy, old building. Not worth the price they were asking for! From there, I went back to see a condo across the street from the first complex. That too required a long walk down a dark, dingy hallway. Closet space was great but it was just not very nice and not what I had in mind. I would not have been happy there. Just in case, I put a hold on the "maybe" apartment back over in Pentagon City in case I didn't find anything else. Discouraged, I came back to the hotel and I'm going to bed.