Helping a friend secure an apartment

[Steve B.]

Hi,

I have a question that apartment owners/managers may be able to help me answer. I'm trying to help a very good friend secure an apartment in Vancouver Washington, as that's where she works, her price range is around $750-$800 a month. Her credit isn’t very good and she makes about 50k a year. My credit is very good and I have a more than enough free cash to pay for any unfortunate contingency. If she stopped paying rent and left for a satanic cult it really wouldn’t affect my finances covering her lease breakage fee or missed rent. Now I have heard different things about being a co-signer, proactively providing a larger deposit, or signing up as a roommate. What is the best way to go about approaching the big apartment mega-complexes with this somewhat unusual situation considering they usually do things by the book.

@Marcia Maynard and others your expertise are appreciated.