Moving to Madison in 3 weeks (Fitchburg, Middleton: apartment, rental, townhomes)

[bubbagti]

Hi Everyone,

I accepted a job in Madison, and will be moving my family there in the next 3 weeks. I still need to find a place to live and wanted to ask some questions. Mainly where should my family live?

I'll be working downtown, just west of the capital. I'd like to keep my commute to under ~25mins. Our main priorities for a place are the following:

-Safe neighborhood
-Activities for our kids (A 3yo and a newborn in July)
-3 bedrooms
-2 car garage
~2k/month for rent. Flexible on this as we need to find something very quickly
- ideally we would like a house. We live in an apartment currently, and with kids its difficult.

Any help or direction you can give would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Bubba

[gypsyjudy]

I would look in the Verona, Fitchburg or Middleton area. Madison, though growing, is pretty small, so the commute time will never be too bad. Though I am currently living in St. Louis, I lived there for 13 years and had 3 kids there. It's just a fabulous community. I would love to go back. I notice your wife it having a baby very soon. I highly recommend Drs. Melius, Schurr and Cardwell. They delivered my kids, and they are just fabulous. UW on Park Street has great pediatricians, too. Try to find a relocation realtor to help you locate properties. Wish I knew a good one to recommend. Let me know if there are any more questions. Good luck!

[AminWi]

Working downtown, you'll have no trouble finding a place within a 25 minute commute. You may want to consider staying on the west side of Madison to make the commute shorter, but there are plenty of places on the east side that would be within your 25 minute commute window.

If you'd like to stay within the city, I'd look at the Midvale, and Hilldale areas (basically Midvale Boulevard north of the Beltline), or the Elvehjem neighborhood on the east side. All three are safe, have nice parks and nearby activities for kids. If you'd like a close suburb, I'd add Middleton, Monona and McFarland to the list. If you'd like to live further out, you could even look at Cottage Grove, which is more rural but is almost exactly a 25 minute commute from downtown. A 3-bedroom, 2 or 3 car garage duplex in Cottage Grove or McFarland runs around $1500 from what I've seen, so they'd be well within budget. Middleton is more expensive but you may be able to find a house in that range, and in Madison and Monona the housing stock will be older but you may also be able to find a house in that range.

[bubbagti]

Thanks for the responses. We have started looking in Fitchburg, Middleton, and Hilldale areas.
It's proving difficult to find housing that is currently available to rent within our requirements. We have reached out to a few landlords so hopefully we will have something lined up this week.

gypsyjudy, thank you for the doctor recommendations. Once we have housing taken care of all of our efforts will go toward finding a doctor for my wife. Having some recommendations is helping us out a lot.

[gypsyjudy]

You are welcome, bubbagti! Cannot recommend the drs enough. Ever think of a townhome? The subdivision I lived in bordering Fitchburg and Verona had some pretty nice townhomes bordering a big park. Our builder, Christopher homes built them. They were near Chavez school at PD and Maple Grove. Haven't lived there in 4 years but seems to still be a nice area and would be very convenient to downtown and a lot of amenities. I suggest you check that area out. Good luck.

[Ragnar]

A lot of the local landlords around the Hilldale and near-campus areas barely advertise. They just put a sign out front. You may need to do a scouting trip to put some boots on the ground. Occupancy rates are generally low in the Madison area, so you're likely to face some challenges if you only do your search remotely, especially if your targeting a rental home and not an apartment.