Best Way To Find Rentals in Knoxville/Area Suggestions (Oak Ridge: real estate, apartments)

[RotseCherut]

I am going to be probably coming to Knoxville at the end of next month. I was wondering if people can suggest which neighborhoods would be the best to look at within a 30 minute (outside rush hour/traffic times, appx 25 to 30 mile) radius of the center of the city (I know Knoxville is quite spread out) and would be about as safe and quiet as I can afford. My budget as of now will probably be under $1000/mo. Preferably I would pay less, but I can stretch it out to $1000 if I had to and if it means I get to have some peace and quiet. Apartments just always seem to be noisy with some lovely neighbor always blasting his/her music at 2AM. The last two places I lived I just got so unlucky I guess, right? As of now, I hear East Knoxville is the worst neighborhood and some say parts of South Knoxville are best avoided as well. But, I am open to people's "difference of opinions" here . For example, maybe some parts of South Knoxville are good and others not? I wouldn't know. I also hear suburbs like Farragut, Maryville, Alcoa, Sevierville are decent. Some say Oak Ridge is great and other say to avoid it as it is run down. Once again, I have not spent hardly any time in Knoxville metro and have no real idea what is true or not. I rather live closer to the mountains (that is East suburbs) if I live outside of Knoxville. Although, a little west is no big deal like Oak Ridge. But, I rather be within an hour of the mountains than like 90 min or 2 hours if I can help it. Of course, beggars cannot be choosers. If there is great neighborhoods 30 miles west and is cheap living, it could be tempting. These are just my preferences.

Also, does anyone know the best service to use in Knoxville to find rentals? Craigslist mostly has apartment listings and I do see listings on Zillow. Finding the legit home listings on Craigslist from the scam ones does take some work. I was just wondering if people had any other ideas in this day and age about good services to use to find rentals? My goal is not to live in an apartment because they are almost always noisy and have poor management. However, I know my budget is quite low and I may not be able to afford much more than an apartment. I am open to living a bit out in the country, but not too far out there. I didn't have much luck utilizing real estate agents in Charlotte, but if anyone does know a real estate agent who is honest and has some good connections to rentals in Knoxville area I of course I don't think it would hurt to talk to them.

I will be looking to move-in to my new place literally at very end of August or beginning of September. I hope that is not a bad time of year to look. Not that I have much of a choice, since I have to be out of my place by end of August here in Colorado.

I am now disabled and will be trying to find home-based software work and spending next year living pretty cheaply while I try to salvage my software career. I actually will be working/studying software technologies from home using a lay down workstation, since it is the only way I will be able to work long hours. I no longer can work a desk job or do long hours of standing because of my disability. Basically, blew out my back from too many years of software work.

Considering I no longer can work a desk job at a big company (they tend to just work you to until your dead), I no longer care about being in an environment with lots of IT jobs. Finding a place with low taxes, affordable cost of living and beautiful scenery and nature like Knoxville seems ideal to me. I also did enjoy the time I visited Knoxville, which was only for a couple days and didn't get to explore much.

[Serious Conversation]

You could check around Strawberry Plains. That gets you closer to the Smokies and the rents should be lower than right in Knoxville. If you need to go back into the city, it won't be far.

I would try Trulia or Apartments.com