Salina, KS Rental housing (Ellsworth, Park: real estate, apartments, rental homes)

[squaredot]

I am trying to find a decent affordable place to live in the Salina, KS area.
I recently took a job here, but now I can't find a decent place to live!
Does anyone know of someone who has rental property available?
I am looking for something under $700 that has central air and is in a decent neighborhood.
Also, why is there such a lack of apartments in Salina? The only decent ones they have are income restricted. No new apartments seem to have been built otherwise in the last 20 years. I keep reading that Salina wants to grow and bring in people to live here, but with the way the housing is there is no way it's possible from what I see.
Thanks,

[quesera]

When we moved to Salina 10+ years ago, we had a tough time finding a place, too. We finally found an apartment at Parklane Townehomes, up on the hill. It was a nice, quiet place. It's on Crawford & Fairdale. Bear in mind, this was over 10 years ago, and we moved from Salina 4 years ago.

[Ranger12]

I haven't rented for years and can't speak on the income based apartments but that seems odd because there are tons of apartments here, some of them pretty nice.

Still with that said, i would do what we did 12 years ago when we moved here. Call some local real estate agencies and keep asking for rental homes until someone finally helps you.

A lot of realtor's will try and help you out because they figure you might buy from them some day. We had a super nice Realtor help find us a nice rental home back then.

Another word of advice is to avoid North of Crawford if you can. Avoid any numbered streets for the most part. Not that we have huge crime here but your odds go up in those areas.

[eliteprogress]

Avoid North of Crawford? I lived on Iron close to the courthouse for quite a while and never had any problems. I wasn't even aware that the crime rate was higher in those areas. Well, I did have a juvenile get into my car and take my purse, but my car locks didn't work at the time and for some reason I left my purse in my car (not typical of me). So,... I guess I did have one problem

I am in the same boat. I just took a job in Salina too and I live in Ellsworth currently so I have been driving back and forth because I haven't found a decent place that wouldn't break the budget. My next step was to do what you said Ranger and call the real estate agencies. Good advice.