Young family coming to Memphis (Central, Midtown: for sale, apartment complex, rental homes)

[mhussein]

Hi,

I am coming to Memphis to attend graduate school at UT, and brining my wife and our 1 year old son. We both are 25 years old. We are originally from Egypt, from a medium size city on the Nile, but we've lived for two years in the Northwest, in a small city called Pullman in Eastern Washington State.

We are looking for an affordable ($650-750/mo) apartment in a safe community, where my wife and kid can go out safely, that's not too far from campus in downtown. Our kid is not yet school age so, though we might be interested in an area with good (public) schools, it's not a pressing issue now. An apartment complex with kids' playground close would be great.

I kinda like what I have heard about Gtown and Cordova but they are too far from campus and if I would drive every day for about 25 minutes, it's gonna be ~ $200-250 a month for gas! The "good" apartments I found online in these two places are out of my budget range, esp. when you consider driving cost.

I found a few complexes that I would love to hear what you think about,

Townhouse Apartments on Central Avenue in Midtown. Any thoughts about this particular complex and the area?

Park Tower in downtown, I could not find any reviews on this one.

Greenlaw place on Mill Ave.

The Georgian Woods Apts. on Union Ave.

The Registry at Wolfchase.

Could you give us an advice on where else to look and if you have specific recommendations, that would be great.

Any help is greatly appreciated

[Pearlbob]

Well, there are not many good public schools in Memphis. You'd need to live in the suburbs to find an area that overall has good public schools. I wouldn't worry about that at all now if your child is not school age; if you are renting, y ou can always move elsewhere.

$650 is not a lot of money for a rental that can hold two adults and a child unfortunately. You pay for safety here in Memphis, so if you want to live within the city you'll probably need to pay a bit more to get somewhere clean and safe. The area UT is in is not a very good/safe area.

That being said, of the ones you listed:

Townhouse: while this is midtown, it's the very western edge and Lamar Ave next door is NOT safe. I don't know about the complex, but I personally would not want to live right there. I would not feel safe walking around after dark right next to Lamar.

Park Tower: we just had another post about this place. I personally would never live there or in that area. Very unsafe area historically, although they h ave been doing a lot to try and improve the medical area right there.
Looking for a place Downtown

Greenlaw: No. This used to be a crime and drug filled area of town. They demolished the crack houses, etc and built new apartments, but a lot of the same people still live there. ANd, of course the same people still live around that area. I would personally never live in Uptown.

Georgian Woods: I don't know anything about this large complex, but at least it's in a decent area.

Registry at Wolfchase: it's in the suburbs, in a very, very crowded traffic area (lots of shopping, etc). The area is definitely very safe and clean. I don't know anything about this specific complex though.

I would recommend you look at apartments on Mud Island (Harbortown) however if $750 is your max for a two bedroom apartment, I don't think any of the complexes would have anything for that price. Midtown has some very nice areas, lots of houses/duplexes for rent, but you really need to be completely familiar with the area as midtown neighborhoods can go from bad to good very quickly. You could try looking for rental homes/duplexes in the east Memphis area as well.

[Pearlbob]

Here's some examples of places (but a bit more than you want to spend) that are in town, close to UT, and are what I would consider pretty safe and okay neighborhoods. But - don't just take my opinion please, get other people to weigh in. I'm sure UT offers an apartment-finding service to faculty, staff, and students.

1781 Peabody Avenue | Memphis TN Homes for Sale | Crye-Leike

843 Thistledown Drive | Memphis TN Homes for Sale | Crye-Leike

247 Buntyn Street | Memphis TN Homes for Sale | Crye-Leike

[kingchef]

johnny ryall posted a very interesting article regarding olive branch. it is identified as the fastest growing city in the u.s. the list of criteria for making the list is included in the article. a memphis suburb is the fast growing city in the u.s. i think that is pretty impressive. according to another article, the city expects to have a resident population of over 200,000 in 20 years. desoto county is projected to have 300,000 in less than 30 years. although i am happy for them, but i put my money on lakeland-arlington for the high growth in the next 10-20 years. go M! one city on the list, carey, was on the list for having 9000 millionaires in their city. i can't remember, off hand, what state, but i will look it up, and post it.

[Trillian42]

I do not recommend the Georgian Woods apartments. It's been 10 years since I lived there, but it was not a good experience. The kitchen was tiny, the heater broke frequently, the walls were paper thin (I could hear my neighbor's alarm clock every morning), and the laundry facilities were in a separate building. Also, the train tracks were so close that car alarms in the parking lot were set off when it passed.

A friend of mine lived in a high-rise that seemed nice. Rosemont...? Something like that.