Definitely Moving With Dog (hes my child) Need Advice Please!!! (Boston: apartments, rentals)

[DogLoverGoin2ECoast]

Hi And Thanks In advance For your Help,

I am a thirtyish single female currently living in Texas and abhor it. I am not a native Texan. I have family in Boston, am very intellectual and love everything about the region. Although currently unemployed,the job market looks good for my skill set ( I have a Master's) and I am in the process of applying for my Mass. professional license. I am sure I will be employed before I can make the move anyway. I want to return to school for a career change.

Now the downers:

1. Bad credit (medical bills walloped me, got behind on some loans while recovering) BUT i have an excellent rent history.
2. Where can I go with my dog? Hes a big friendly lab mix who loves everyone he meets.
3. I would love to live in Boston but have read it is not pet friendly nor car friendly. Both are deal breakers. Have to have the car to visit family in the country. So it sounds like suburbia is the next choice...
4.A loft is fine with me my current apt is 900 sq feet.

Can someone please offer me some help? I hope to be up there by March 2012

Thanks!

[lrfox]

Jamaica Plain instantly comes to mind. Dog friendly apartments aren't easy to come by, but JP seems to have more than a number of other neighborhoods. A lot of JP's businesses are dog friendly and there are a higher volume of rentals with off-street parking. Even on-street parking is easier to find here.

Jamaica Plain is a big area full of many smaller neighborhoods. I would focus my search in JP from Mahoney Square (Centre at Perkins Streets) south along Centre Street (including streets running off of Centre) and South Street to the Forest Hills T Station. This is a large enough area and one that's mostly very safe. It's also pet friendly and you should have no trouble parking.

[DogLoverGoin2ECoast]

Thank You! I will definitely research that as a top of the list! (My dog thanks you as well!)

[shiver]

Jamaica Plain (also known as JP) is a good option. You may have some luck slightly outside of Boston Proper - both with the dog and the parking. Maybe like a Quincy or Watertown. Both very close to the city, but a little cheaper and more residential.

If you get your credit pulled, I'd have a short letter of explanation ready detailing that your credit history is poor mainly because of medical debt and not because of other late payments. I feel like people are more understanding if it's just med debt. Also, realize that most apartments aren't even listed for rental until 30-60 days prior to move-in (when current tenants are required to give notice).

If possible, I'd try to line up a job before moving. I know that's not always doable, but landlords may be wary if you have problematic credit and you aren't employed and you are coming from out of state and you have a big dog.

Also, where you work often dictates where you live. As a newbie, Boston will hardly endear itself to you if you're dealing with a miserable commute each way.

[miu]

I had a friend that lived in an apartment on the beach in Winthrop. He didn't have a car and worked in Boston and Cambridge. He would run with his bull mastiff on the beach.

The beach in Swampscott is dog friendly.

[orangetravelerJP]

We just moved here from Texas with our dog & two cars! It was definitely more difficult to move with the dog but there are apartments out there. We looked for apartments on Craigslist and Hotpads. Both search engines allow you to indicate that you're looking for a place that accepts dogs. However, you'll want to read the fine print because we found that many of those places only accept very small dogs or actually accept cats but somehow "dogs ok" was also indicated. Any place that you decide to look at...before you go, ask specifically if they will accept a large dog. That way you won't waste your time or theirs. We also found that it was a little easier to look at places that are for rent by owner rather than through a complex or a broker. Sometimes there is a little more flexibility.

As for the car situation, I'd look a little further out. You can still be near the city (ie. not out in the country) without being in Boston proper. Some towns have parking laws that can give you a clue as to whether parking will be easy. For instance, when we've told people that we ended up in Arlington, they'll respond with "Oh yeah, there's no overnight street parking in Arlington which means you've got a driveway, right?". Huh...didn't even know that's what that law would mean but apparently the locals know it!

Depending on how much you'll be driving to visit family, you might consider ditching the car and using Zipcar or one of the other similar companies. Apparently it is a system that works really well and they have cars all over the place. We ended up moving both of our cars up here simply because it seemed easier (and they are both paid off) but we don't anticipate using one of them. It's currently snowed in and we have no plans to dig it out before spring. We can walk to the bus or train very easily. If you live close to where you work or within an easy commute, you can reduce your reliance on a car and may find it's not necessary if there are other options like ZipCar.