Best time of year for older folk to move to Madison area (Dane: truck rental)

[Topo]

Hi, older folk here, want to maybe try living in the Madison area, I would rent first and I would have to find employment doing something. So, when is the best time to do this? Certainly with the college there are good and bad times to get a deal on housing, and employment options. Summer possibly? If so, does anyone know of reasonable areas to rent.........Lets say an efficiency for $400-$475. And if that is not feasible what surrounding areas of Madison? Also if anyone can relate apartment managers that are reputable for nice rental properties(nice meaning takes care of properties) that would be a huge plus.

Thank You

[tchemgrrl]

Almost all of the apartments around downtown have leases that start on Aug. 15th or 16th, and people usually sign leases in March or April (although especially hot buildings can be completely booked as early as January). If you were planning to move right now, you might actually be able to get some good deals on apartments that haven't been rented out yet, but if you're thinking about moving next year I'd recommend that if you sign an Aug. 15th lease, you wait until the 19th or 20th before coming on out if you can--the City-Wide moving day is an utter madhouse.

I'm not sure how much older is "older", but there are some 55+ apartments that look quite nice from the outside.

400-450 is pretty inexpensive even for a studio if you're looking downtown. When I first moved here in '01, I paid 400/month for a room with a sink, to give you an idea of prices (the bathrooms and kitchen was shared.) A regular studio is more like 500-600 but again, that's downtown. Farther onto the east or west side you might be able to find something. If you're on a fixed income you might want to take a peek at the folks over at Common Wealth Development (Common Wealth Development - Home Page), who provide reasonably-priced housing for people with low income.

If you're looking for reviews of landlords you can talk to the people at the Tenant Resource Center (Tenant Resource Center). They keep files of landlords who have gotten complaints, and are also a great source of information on the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants in Dane County.

Good luck!

[MidwesternBookWorm]

Excellent suggestions, tchemgrrl, particularly the link to the Tenant Resource Center. That's an incredibly useful resource for any renter in the area. However, I would *strongly* recommend against an August 15 lease for anyone over the age of 22, because any 8/15 lease is going to be in a primarily student building, and that is not where most of us fogies (anyone 25 or older) want to live.

I spent five of the longest years of my professional life working for a campus-area landlord in downtown Madison, so I've got a bit of up-close experience on this topic. "Especially hot buildings", as you describe them, actually rent up for August in about November of the preceeding year. My former employer owns 4 of the most popular ones, and they'd start advertising in July what day they'd start accepting rental applications for the following August. On that date, usually in late October, the rich East-coast snobs would literally camp overnight in line outside the landlord's office to get first dibs on their preferred building. Then when they'd move in, they'd pee in the elevators, puke in the hallways, trash their apartments, and sue the landlord when they didn't get all their security deposit back. No, I don't think you want to live in the student-oriented apartments.

Apartments farther out from the center of downtown are going to be significantly less expensive, and available for move-ins year-round. Even getting 3 miles from the campus area can drop rents by as much as 30%, and you don't have to contend with "Homeless Night", the night of August 14 when there are 40,000 homeless college students sleeping on lawns and in their U-Hauls waiting for access to their new apartments. You also don't have to pay a premium for a rental truck; the truck rental places charge three to four times their usual rates to rent a truck between August 10 and 20, and they still have more people pleading for trucks to rent than they have trucks to offer.

It should also be noted that apartment rents in general have dropped somewhat in recent years in Madison anyway, due to several reasons. One is the recent proliferation of big fancy campus-area apartment buildings, which has resulted in less demand for the old "student ghetto" type of units. A second is the housing boom of the past few years; a lot of people who thought they'd never be anything but renters wound up buying homes, creating more of a glut on the apartment market. Even though the housing bubble is deflating with the tighter credit these days, there are still more apartment units available than there are renters, and that puts the renter in a strong position for negotiation. Many landlords offer things like "free month of rent when you sign a 12-month lease", free or reduced-rate parking, and other come-ons.

Oh, parking - if you rent downtown and you have a vehicle, you'd better plan on spending an extra $75 to $250 per month to park that puppy. $75 per month will get you an outdoor spot that you'll have to shovel around when it snows. For $250, you can get an underground spot, if your name ever gets to the top of the waiting list. Parking in the outlying areas of town, however, is either free or available for a nominal sum.

To answer your specific question about when is the best time to move, avoid August, and avoid snowy months (December through March). Beyond that, pretty much any time of year is good.

As for which landlord to rent from, the Tenant Resource Center is a good place to start. They almost function as a sort of "Better Business Bureau" for landlords, and they can tell you who to contact and who to avoid.

Good luck, and I hope to see you at the Farmers' Market some Saturday!