If you are thinking about moving into your own apartment and you need a roommate, you should take extra care to ensure that you are picking the right person. Many people wonder if there is a secret method to picking the perfect roommate, and while different people have different standards that they judge a good roommate by, here are a few essential tips you can follow to help you end up with someone you actually like living with.

First off, try to find someone you know. That way, you already have a good idea of what kind of personality they have and what kinds of interests they have. While no one wants to live with a clone of themselves, it helps to live with someone you have similar interests to so that you aren’t always fighting over the television or what to do at night.

If you aren’t going to live with someone you know, try to screen your roommates the best you can. Make a list of priorities so that you can ask prospective roommates what is most important to them. If you both have neatness and quiet nature at the top of the list, than you likely have a match.

Finally, go with your gut instincts. It may sound a bit clichéd, but often times your first impression about someone is the right impression. You probably also want to stick to someone of the same sex (assuming you’re straight) so that there is no sexual tension that could ruin an otherwise mutually beneficial agreement.

While online apartment hunting websites have completely revolutionized the way that many of us search for places to live, the one thing they haven’t really done is help us find places that need roommates, but that doesn’t mean that the computer is completely worthless. There are plenty of other sites, like Craigslist that are full of free personal ads posted by individuals looking for roommates. If you live in a smaller town or in a place that doesn’t have a Craigslist page, there are alternatives for finding the roommate of your dreams.

One good place to look is at the apartment complex you want to move into. Many times, these complexes will have common areas that have posters and roommate requests on a board so you can write down a bunch of phone numbers and possibly find a roommate that way. You can even make a day of going from complex to complex searching for roommates, and before you know, you’ll likely have a great place to live. You can always post a note on those boards, too, that way, if someone who lives in a complex you like needs a roommate, you will likely get called quickly.

Of course, the oldest way to find a roommate is simply by asking around your circle of friends. Most people would prefer to live with someone they know so you will likely not have any problems finding someone to live with if your friends know that you’re looking.

In this hectic day and age, most people don’t follow the traditional nine to five workday any longer, which can make communicating with your roommate difficult, especially if one of you works nights and the other works days. Here are a few failsafe tips for keeping in contact with your roommate.

Try to avoid leaving notes and emails unless you absolutely have to. Face to face communication is absolutely key to keeping your relationship with your roommate positive and on the up and up. When people are left notes, they tend to think they are being talked down to or that they are being lectured. Notes and emails can’t accurately convey tone or if you are joking or not, so it is best to wait to speak face to face if at all possible.

If the two of you are always missing each other and are often out of food that you both like, set up a grease board or a magnet list for food shopping so that you can always be sure that you have your favorite foods in the house. Be sure to communicate, however, so that both of you don’t go out on the same day and pick up the same thing.

Finally, if you have any problems with each other, it is important for the two of you to talk about them as soon as possible. Letting things fester for weeks or even months is never a good thing, and it can ruin what was an otherwise solid friendship.