Possible move to Birmingham.. questions

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by mjblues

Hello-

I have been offered a position at the Birmingham VA Medical Center. I and my fiance will be re-locating from St. Cloud MN sometime late this summer. We are well past 40 in age- no kids- and between the two of us have lived in large cities like San Diego, Memphis, Philadelphia as well as small towns such as Sun Valley ID...

What we seek is an apartment/townhome 1+ bedroom close to VA hospital in a reasonably safe area of town (he has very expensive music instruments and will be hopefully looking for gigs soon after arrival) Currently our combined salary is in the 36,000 per yr range so can't afford much more than 650 per month rent- with luck perhaps buy a house within a year.

Any suggestions on what properties to investigate for rental in our price range as well as neighborhoods to consider would be most welcome.

Thanks!

If you have a down payment ready, the buy-to-rent ratio is pretty good here, so that would be a good idea to buy. There are some starter condos on southside. If you can afford it, the historical houses are really nice in southside as well and while not as cheap as a condo, are still very cheap. It is true that $650/mo including insurance and taxes might be difficult to get with a free-standing house, even in the Bham city limits (unless you are in an area more likely to have a break-in).
I think the apts and lofts downtown might be out of the price-range to buy. I'm not sure since I've never looked. They used to want a lot for them, but perhaps they got practical after the market crashed.

[mjblues]

Thanks much for the suggestions. Are there any particular buildings in the southside/highland Ave or Downtown that you would recommend? I think the cityville block 121 is lovely but out of budget for us (lol) I'm also hoping that public transportation is a feasible option as we will be down to only one vehicle between the two of us for a while. More questions...regarding these areas as far as personal safety goes...are we looking at the usual panhandler, street people kind of stuff (read don't go out alone after 10pm unless you are a black belt in karate) or is it more serious? Is parking usually an issue in these areas?

Thanks again!