Renting in Madison (Waukesha, Mequon, Hartland: apartment, rentals, mortgage)

[remcycle]

Alright, so we've made Madison our destination after much deliberation. I'm pretty happy with the decision, now just have to focus on the logistics.

Which brings me to my question, and it's a theoretical one...

Say you were quitting your job in Austin and moving to Madison, and you really wanted to rent a house in the area before you left. How would you go about it? Contact a realtor? Try to meet a landlord online (anyone!? anyone?)? Flip through an online version of the local paper?

or...

Would you move up and live in a motel until you found a place?

Keep in mind here that neither myself nor my wife will be employed upon arrival in Madison and will only have about $3-4K saved. The no job thing will make finding a landlord to rent to us pretty difficult I'm sure, but I'd hate to subject my 7 year old to another apartment.

I really hope I'm not banking too much on the fact that the 2% unemployment rate will work for me too. But what's life without a little adventure, right?

[MidwesternBookWorm]

Yikes... That's not much of a safety net to move across country with. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with your conclusion to move to Madison; we moved here from the Rion Grande Valley in 1999, and it was the best thing we ever did. But it isn't cheap. Our moving expenses alone were around $5K, and that doesn't count the four months that we paid double housing costs (rent up here and mortgage payments on the house in Texas until it sold).

You may want to consider doing a gradual move rather than uprooting the whole family all at once. What I mean by that is that the adult with the best job-hunting prospects might move up here and take a small efficiency apartment on a short lease, and immediately start an intensive job hunt, while the other adult keeps their existing job in Texas for the sake of having at least some income. Employers are hiring here despite Bernanke's bleak assessment, and wages tend to be higher than you'll find elsewhere. If you have job skills that are in demand, it should not take you long to find a position.

Once one person in the family has a local address and a local employment reference, it'll be a lot easier to prospect around for homes to rent, and easier to meet a landlord's rental qualifications once you find one. And THEN you bring the rest of the family up north.

It's not easy, of course. It's hard to keep a marriage or partnership going when you're 1,500 miles apart for several months, and when there are kids involved, that makes it even tougher. I just think that if your financial resources are that slender, you'd be well-advised to try to keep at least some income flowing during the transition.

If you really want to try to find a place to live from Austin, I'd suggest that you check Start Renting (there's another thread about rentals in Madison that has a link to their website) and the online version of the Madison newspapers. And if you can swing an interviewing and house-hunting visit up here, I suspect it would be quite worthwhile.

Good luck to you in any case! I hope that you find a way to pull off the move, and that Madison proves to be a wonderful fit for you. Hope to see you at the Farmers' Market!

[Madcitygirl]

There are a lot of short term leases in Madison, one word of caution they are taken rather quickly because of the university students. You will want to have a lease signed before May or it will be more difficult.

You may want to look into some of the larger complexes because they base on credit. They do need income information, but co-signing is an option if you have a relative willing to do so.

Start Renting is a good one and you can go to Madison.com, they have employment, rentals and all of that. Beware of low rents though, Madison has bad neighborhoods tucked near nice ones. I know last time I was looking Allied Drive always has a lot of listings and sound nice, but one of the worst neighborhoods if not the worst.

[remcycle]

Originally Posted by MidwesternBookWorm

Yikes... That's not much of a safety net to move across country with. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with your conclusion to move to Madison; we moved here from the Rion Grande Valley in 1999, and it was the best thing we ever did. But it isn't cheap. Our moving expenses alone were around $5K, and that doesn't count the four months that we paid double housing costs (rent up here and mortgage payments on the house in Texas until it sold).

Lucky for us we're not saddled with such problems...we're still renting in Austin, and it shows from the miniscule amount of stuff we have to move. Our Penske truck is going to cost (get this!) $450 to get all of our stuff from here to Madison, plus another $200 on each end to pay someone to load/unload it. So about a thousand to load, unload and rent the truck, plus another $400-$500 in gas I assume. Add to that another $400 in motel rooms and grub for the three day drive and we've got a thousand dollar relo. Sounds like a good deal, considering the horrible place we're leaving.

Also, I'm the only one in our family with a job; my wife homeschools our daughter and is also a prospective grad student, so the split family is something of a "not gonna happen" idea. I know exactly what you mean, though; when we left Waukesha to move to Texas eons ago, my father moved here first to work out all the details while my mother, sister and I stayed behind and orchestrated the move. A company-paid relo package helped, too.

Unfortunately, this is going to be our only shot or else we're stuck here. We just have to have a little faith, get a s**tty apartment over the net on a 6 or 12 month lease, and make the move. Once we're there, I think adjusting and moving around will be fairly straight-forward.

[Megan1967]

Originally Posted by remcycle

Unfortunately, this is going to be our only shot or else we're stuck here.

Since I want to move to Austin I have a couple of questions. Why is this your only shot to get out? Is there something going on in Austin I should be aware of? Why do you think Austin is so horrible? It is often compared to Madison, which is why I'm considering a move there - better climate, same cool vibe.

[remcycle]

Hey Megan!

In the last thread I started about this, you said you were thinking about moving to Austin, to which I posted a reply:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/madis...do-i-move.html

Check post number 7.

...and we'd be stuck here because as a one-income household making what I make (which is enough to go check to check on...), it takes FOREVER to save enough to move.

[Megan1967]

Ah, wasn't sure if you were the same poster. Could you describe the "flavor" of rude you find in Californians. Stand-offish I can tolerate, loud music blaring, parking on the lawn, wild party throwing is another story...

[remcycle]

Well, it depends on the side of town. Most party-throwing types move into the near South side, build massive contemporary houses on a block with dilapidated 100 year old shacks, drive the taxes up and the neighbors out...but the neighbors aren't stupid, so they just move to a cheaper place and rent the shack to college kids. So there ya go.

The near north neighborhoods like Hyde Park have a lot of College kids too (UT is within walking distance), but the further north you get, the less of them you find in the houses.

The way out suburbs are VERY stand-off-ish. It's become a bit like Seattle or SF in that regard; everyone'll say hi, but that's where it stops. Of course there are always exceptions, but the average tends to lean toward "come close but not too close".

I was driving around in the country last night and commenting to myself about just how beautiful it still is down here, but the sprawl continues. Even towns that used to be a world away are now within commuting distance thanks to newly constructed toll roads that lead straight into town and such. Everything has gotten much closer time-wise. To put it in Wisconsin terms, imagine commuting to Madison from, say, Hartland. Pretty far, right? Then imagine someone builds a three-lane superhighway straight to it. Property values shift, populations shift, you get the idea. Happens everywhere, sure, but it plus the fight over the NAFTA superhighway makes central texas a very unsure place right now.

Are you planning on buying a house or just renting for a while? I can give you some good area tips, as I've been here forever.

[Megan1967]

Thanks! I have to buy as I have 6 cats and a dog. I can't afford the city and so have been looking at west Round Rock and more recently Georgetown. Both have affordable homes and liberal pet restrictions, even the hoas. Basically if you aren't a nuisance you're okay.

I don't live in a "cool" section of Madison for the same reason - $$ and have to drive to those areas if I want to enjoy them, so I don't mind the suburbs so much unless they are really weird like Mequon was. I want some sense of community.

[remcycle]

You'll get much more of a sense of community in Georgetown than in Round Rock. Round Rock "used" to be really nice until all the McMansions starting going up everywhere.

Now, in Round Rock, you're lucky if you get a "Hello" or a wave if you let someone into traffic. The taxes are pretty high too since it's the "hot" place to be.

You could get closer to town and move into Pflugerville which has some really nice neighborhoods. Don't worry about the silly name. Scofield Farms is the name of a planned neighborhood on the southwest side of Pflugerville that is REALLY friendly and nice, although I don't know what the pet restrictions are.

The tightest neighborhood I know of in Austin is called Wells Branch, which is also right outside Pflugerville on the West side just south of Round Rock. Again, I have no idea what their pet restrictions are, but I see people with multiple pets out on the hike/bike trails all the time.