Help! Apartment Recommendations For a Young UAB professional (Birmingham, Southside: extended stay, real estate)

[Patricks9876]

I will be moving to Birmingham Alabama in April 2009 for a job at UAB. I am 28, single and looking for cool places to live close to UAB.

1) Budget upto 700$

2) Looking for either a studio/ 1 bedroom apartment

3) Five-10 minute walking distance from UAB. However wont mind driving 10 minutes to get to work

4) Close to Bars and nightlife

5) This looks interesting
a) Jemison Flats (may stretch my budget, looking for something similar, maybe 100$ cheaper)

All suggestions and advice will be greatly appreciated. I am planning to sign the lease in middle of April.

Thanks,
Patrick

[3am green coffee]

If you're looking to stay under $700, you will probably have a hard time finding anything in the area near Jemison Flats. Those buildings downtown are mostly commercial buildings that have been converted to lofts in the last decade and are mostly more expensive than your price range. I also think that would probably be more than a 10 minute walk to UAB from there.

But that's not a problem. There are plenty of 1BR and even a few smaller 2BR apartments in your price range in Southside. My first thought is that your situation screams for the Highland area, the area on the side of Red Mountain east of the Red Mountain Expressway, although a walk to UAB from up there might be a little more involved than you want. It's still within 5 to 10 minutes from campus in a car, or you can ride the bus.

The area around the Highland Avenue parks is mostly young professionals with some students and old folks mixed in. There are a few high rise apartment buildings, a lot of smaller walk-ups, and plenty of streets with houses. There are some beautiful places over there, and you're also just a stone's throw from the Five Points bars and restaurants.

I live a few blocks from the Alys Stephens Center, over on the west side of the Expressway. The buildings over here aren't as nice as up around Highland, but there are still some pretty nice places over here well within your price range. There are also quite a few huge old houses over here that have been divided up into apartments. My area has young professionals, young working people, students and some families. I think it's a bit more convenient to UAB than the Highland area. I routinely walked to school when I was attending UAB.

One thing to consider is that UAB's campus is large. A little known fact about UAB is that the name really stands for The University that Ate Birmingham. It's big enough that it takes more than ten minutes to walk from one end to the other. So finding a place within a ten minute walk from your office will depend in large part on where you work.

My advice to you would be to come here, fill up the tank and drive around the area for a day or two to get a feel for it. Most buildings with vacancies will have signs out. You can't really get a sense of the area from the crap the real estate companies post on their websites.

[Patricks9876]

Thanks-"3am....". Based on your suggestions I did some online searching about apartments in the Highland area. I will probably have one day to finalize the place to live when I visit. So I am hoping to have at least a few concrete places in mind and then drive around to see others. Here's what I found:
1) My office will be in the Bevill Biomedical Research Building zip-35294

2) These are the places which seem to be interesting. I have listed in the order of preference
Le pointe condos
Summit house
Highland Ridge
Berkley on Highland

3) I also found a review about "Southwood garden apartments" which was not very pleasant. I am trying to avoid such places

4) Please help me by giving me a few names to begin with either from my list or what you think are nice places


Thanks,
Patrick

[3am green coffee]

Originally Posted by Patricks9876

Thanks-"3am....". Based on your suggestions I did some online searching about apartments in the Highland area.

* * *

2) These are the places which seem to be interesting. I have listed in the order of preference
Le pointe condos
Summit house
Highland Ridge
Berkley on Highland

Actually, the places you listed are all in the Five Points area. That's one of the problems with the idiot real estate management companies around here. They post listings for their apartments and say they're in the "Highland area" when they aren't, to try to suck in people from out of town who have been told to look for apartments in the Highland area.

Even the two you mentioned with "Highland" in the name are not in the Highland area. Highland Ridge is almost two neighborhoods away from that area.

The Highland area is the area where Highland Avenue winds along and among several parks. While Highland Avenue extends all the way down to 20th Street, the Highland neighborhood starts at the Red Mountain Expressway and extends east toward Highland Golf Course. If you go to Google Maps and search for "Rhodes Park, Birmingham, AL," it will center the map right smack in the middle of the Highland neighborhood so you can see the area I'm talking about. Some search terms that might help in finding apartment buildings: Highland Park, Caldwell Park, Rushton Park, Rhodes Park, Underwood Park, Hanover Park, Highland Golf Course (or Highland Park Golf Course), St. Vincent's Hospital, Niazuma Avenue.

As for the buildings you mentioned, I really think you need to see these places in person before getting your heart set on any of them. Le Pointe, for example, is managed by Metcalfe Realty. I looked at a number of Metcalfe managed properties when I first moved back to town, and from what I've seen, most of their properties seem to be kind of dumpy, cookie-cutter places that cater to a lower class clientele. If you look closely, you'll notice on the Le Pointe website that the "relaxation area" is heavily photoshopped. I don't know what they hid in that photo, but the fact that they did makes it suspect. That's a problem with most of the real estate companies. What you see in the photos on the website often isn't what you see on the ground.

Personally, I would not want to live in Summit House or Highland Ridge, either. I'm familiar with Highland Ridge because it's very near where I live now. You know how different apartment complexes attract different kinds of tenants? Highland Ridge attracts a lot of students and working class people who tend to be loud and rude. That's the problem with the first three places you named: they're not really geared toward young professionals, but toward college students and young working class people who tend to come and go a lot, and the complexes are managed accordingly.

Berkley on Highland is a cool old building, within spitting distance of the Five Points bars and restaurants. It IS on Highland Avenue, but not the part of Highland Avenue that is considered part of the Highland neighborhood (confused yet?). I have never seen the inside of it, so I can't tell you whether the apartments are any good, or how they're managed.

The good news is that if you like that 1920s-1930s style of the Berkley, you're in luck, because Southside is filled with buildings in that style. Most of them are not as large as the Berkley.

Originally Posted by Patricks9876

I will probably have one day to finalize the place to live when I visit. So I am hoping to have at least a few concrete places in mind and then drive around to see others.

One day? That's it?

It's possible to find a decent place to live here in one day, but it's better to have at least a couple of days. You're going to be somewhat stuck in the place you choose for a year after you sign the lease. Do you really want to be forced to make a choice like that in one day, or worse, base it on what you can see on the internet?

There are some reasonably priced extended stay hotels in the area. If it were me, and I only had one day to look in advance, I think I would just plan on packing up all my crap and moving here without having an apartment lined up and staying in a motel for a few days while I found a place. I would try to get here a week in advance of my start date for work to give myself time to find a place and move in. That might cost a bit more money to do it that way, but in the long run I would consider it worth it not to be stuck in a place I didn't like.

Originally Posted by Patricks9876

4) Please help me by giving me a few names to begin with either from my list or what you think are nice places

I know you want specific recommendations for apartment complexes, but Southside really doesn't work that way because there are literally hundreds of small, unnamed older buildings with anywhere from four to twenty units, owned by individuals rather than real estate companies. While there are always vacancies in the area, any specific building I mention to you now may or may not have anything available.

Check out this website:

Historic Properties: Apartments along historic Highland Avenue in Southside Birmingham

I'm not affiliated with these people in any way, but I've been inside some of their buildings, and these are mostly really cool old places. I don't know how they are as managers, but the various buildings they manage will give you a much better idea of what's available in the area than those places you mentioned above.

And that company is just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the cool old buildings in the Highland area don't have their own websites. Their owners just put out a sign when they have vacancies and list in the newspaper or on Craigslist.

Sorry I can't be any more helpful than that. But if you're willing to give yourself a few days, you'll be able to find a much better place than those you mentioned.

[Back Again]

Originally Posted by 3am green coffee

Actually, the places you listed are all in the Five Points area. That's one of the problems with the idiot real estate management companies around here. They post listings for their apartments and say they're in the "Highland area" when they aren't, to try to suck in people from out of town who have been told to look for apartments in the Highland area.

I agree with you here about some "Real Estate Companies". However, I think you fail to understand the difference between a "Real Estate Agent" and a "Realtor". No Realtor will ever handle apartment rentals. Also, a Real Estate Company will only work with either Agents or Realtors, not both.

Just because you may have had a bad experience with an agent, there is no need to put down ALL agents and Realtors. I'm the first to admit there are some very lazy, just give me my commission and leave me alone real estate agents as well as Realtors out there, but for the most part, Realtors are professionals who work very hard.

I am a Realtor, I give the best service I can to my Clients. I have a lot of repeat Clients and get a lot of recommendations from them as well. I work with them long after the deal is closed. If they have a problem that is home related, location, school related etc., they can call me and I help them figure out the right steps to fix that problem, I just do not say, "Hey, my jobs done". I create Clients for life. Which is something one can not do based on bad service.

Feel free to tell people about your bad experience or say "Some" real estate companies and/or Agents do not offer you the full service they should, but please stop putting down all of them. There are good and bad agents in every profession.

Thank you

[3am green coffee]

Originally Posted by Back Again

I agree with you here about some "Real Estate Companies". However, I think you fail to understand the difference between a "Real Estate Agent" and a "Realtor".

I did not mention real estate agents or the branded trademark "Realtor," because that function has nothing to do with this thread. The OP mentioned renting. He did not say he wanted to buy a house.

[Patricks9876]

"3 AM"- All those are good suggestions. I realized that I was looking on the wrong side of the "Expressway". I really liked all the places mentioned on the "old historic houses" websites and would in fact prefer to live in a house with some character, even if it doesn't look "snazzy". I am leaning towards living in the Highland Park neighborhood vs. Five-points as it seems to be more quaint and trendy.

I have convinced my GF (she wont be moving to BHAM for a year-or-so) to make a weekend trip to BHAM with me to drive around and look at a few apartment complexes, both during the day and in the evening before settling on one.

I have ruled out all my previous choices. Please feel free to post any more information that may potentially help me.

Thank you so much for your help. It saved a year of misery

Patrick

[lindalou.22]

I recommend searching out a free apartment locator in Birmingham. I was one here in Spring. Good luck!