help with housing, roommates, etc (Dallas, Greenville: sublet, renters, condo)

[nyc2dfw]

I'm moving from NYC to dallas for work. I've never lived in Dallas and I don't have any friends or family in the area. I had a few questions

1. What is the best way to find a roommate? any websites that I could visit?
2. Best places to live for singles in their late 20s? I'm probably looking for something between Lovefield airport and Downtown dallas for proximity to my job.
3. My budget for rent is around 900$. Is that feasible in the area that I'm looking to live in

Thanks!

[TurtleCreek80]

You are DEFINITELY going to need a roomate with a $900 rent budget. You'll want to live in one of these areas: Uptown, possibly downtown, possibly Design District, or around Knox-Henderson or Lower Greenville neighborboods.

I moved from Dallas to NYC in my early 20's and these methods worked well to find a roomate (and make friends) there my first year. I'd suggest looking into the same here:
1. Ask on Facebook if any friends have friends living in Dallas. Always makes you feel more comfortable living with a friend of a friend.
2. if you went to a bigger college, check the DFW Alumni group's Facebook or website.
3. If you were in a national fraternity or sorority, they will likely have an Alumni group here. My sorority's alumnae FB is pretty active with women looking for roomates & other social and career needs.
4. Your college's alumni directory may reveal other alumni around your age with whom you could network for roomates.
5. If you intend to join a church / synagogue/ mosque here, most larger ones have active young adults group with whom you could network.

At your age, someone is always looking for a roomate and you probably have more friends of friends here than you realize!

[RedTexanTea]

Originally Posted by nyc2dfw

I'm moving from NYC to dallas for work. I've never lived in Dallas and I don't have any friends or family in the area. I had a few questions

1. What is the best way to find a roommate? any websites that I could visit?
2. Best places to live for singles in their late 20s? I'm probably looking for something between Lovefield airport and Downtown dallas for proximity to my job.
3. My budget for rent is around 900$. Is that feasible in the area that I'm looking to live in

Thanks!

https://www.roommates.com (roommates dot com) is a good website, it has a small fee but assuming you are going to find someone quickly it will not be a significant expense.

[BongoBungo]

I've had good luck finding good room mates on Craigslist. Just make sure to hang out with a potential room mate before committing to live with them. If you get bad vibes or any red flags, move on and look for a different room mate.

[Annikan]

Craigslist. I had many amazing roommates from Craigslist when I lived in Dallas, and I sublet my condo/townhouse through Craigslist many summers while I traveled. Never had a bad experience.


My Craigslist process when I was the one renting the house was to post a very wordy ad, so people could get an idea of who I was and what the place was like. Then I would screen responders through email with simple questions about where they went to school, where they work, etc and then google them to verify what they were saying. Most people have FB and LinkedIn at least. 50% of CL responders are ridiculous and don't answer simple questions and don't give information so those people I just immediately said "no thanks, not a good fit". On my ad, I totally included info like "I like to have fun, but I do not like to bring the party home. Looking for a roommate with the same philosophy. I have a significant other but no one stays overnight more than 1-2 times a week. You would need to be okay with that and have the same limits as to how often you have a friend stay over. Absolutely no smoking of any kind in the house. We share walls with two super nice police officers", etc.


Then after I narrowed it down to my top 2-3, I would invite them over to see the place and chat. I always invited a friend to come over too. After the in-person meeting, I would go with who seemed like the best fit.


With that simple process, I never had a bad roommate, never had a late payment (I owned the townhouse and condo, so they were paying rent to me), never had a big issue. Am still friends with most of them today. I had both male and female roommates, all religions and backgrounds. I'd say what we had most in common is that we were all working professionals in our 20s and that we were respectful.

[BongoBungo]

Originally Posted by Annikan

Craigslist. I had many amazing roommates from Craigslist when I lived in Dallas, and I sublet my condo/townhouse through Craigslist many summers while I traveled. Never had a bad experience.


My Craigslist process when I was the one renting the house was to post a very wordy ad, so people could get an idea of who I was and what the place was like. Then I would screen responders through email with simple questions about where they went to school, where they work, etc and then google them to verify what they were saying. Most people have FB and LinkedIn at least. 50% of CL responders are ridiculous and don't answer simple questions and don't give information so those people I just immediately said "no thanks, not a good fit". On my ad, I totally included info like "I like to have fun, but I do not like to bring the party home. Looking for a roommate with the same philosophy. I have a significant other but no one stays overnight more than 1-2 times a week. You would need to be okay with that and have the same limits as to how often you have a friend stay over. Absolutely no smoking of any kind in the house. We share walls with two super nice police officers", etc.


Then after I narrowed it down to my top 2-3, I would invite them over to see the place and chat. I always invited a friend to come over too. After the in-person meeting, I would go with who seemed like the best fit.


With that simple process, I never had a bad roommate, never had a late payment (I owned the townhouse and condo, so they were paying rent to me), never had a big issue. Am still friends with most of them today. I had both male and female roommates, all religions and backgrounds. I'd say what we had most in common is that we were all working professionals in our 20s and that we were respectful.

As someone who has found countless room mates and renters this way, this advice is spot on. You'll weed out 99% of potential bad room mates by doing this. The part about sharing a wall with police officers is also brilliant and something I need to try because despite my best efforts I still ended up with a few pothead room mates (not that I'm anti-pot, I just don't want anything illegal going on in my house) and could never prove they were doing anything illegal.

In my experience, bad room mates rarely take the time to type up more than 1 sentence in their replies to your CL ad. The best room mates I've had fully answered all my questions. You can tell a lot about a person by how they respond to such a Craigslist ad. If they can't even answer basic questions, then don't bother with them.