Grand Rapids home rentals (Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo: houses, renting, company)

[xlrbnc]

I've been looking for a 4 bedroom rental home in GR proper for over a month now and have become quite frustrated. I was born and raised in the area, so am quite familiar with good neighborhoods and such, but seem to be finding the same types of places over and over again when searching online, namely:

-95% of rentals seem to be within a 2-3 block radius of Martin Luther King Park or the Kalamazoo/Hall intersection (this is hardly an exaggeration); areas I am definetly not interested in

-Places that look terrible and contain few-to-no amenities renting for over $1,200/month (obvious traps to grab the out-of-towners attending GVSU, Calvin, or Aquinas).

-The same houses listed over-and-over for weeks on end with maybe one new house listed in any given week.

I've been checking the following websites multiple times a day for over a month now: rentgr.com, craig's list, grar.com, weeklyrentalguide.org, the mlive classifieds, urbanpharm.com, showmetherent.com, and the weekly heritage hill rental newsletter. I am wrapping up my degree at UofM in Ann Arbor right now (finishing in a week) so that has been what's necessitating the internet-only search. However, I have no idea how one would find a place outside of using the internet.

Can anybody give me tips, realtors, company names, anything to help point me towards a nice four bedroom home in a decent neighborhood?


I can't believe this has been such a difficult search while the market is so depressed, even more shocking has been the rents some GR landlords expect for absolutely terrible homes (and as a current AA resident, it has to be pretty blatant for rent gouging to make me even bat an eye). We really are not looking for anything fancy; 1,200/month will probably be the upper bound on our rent but we refuse to pay that much to live in a mold-filled, former kegger hotspot with a disgusting kitchen and 20 year old appliances.

[greenseeker]

try leasegr.com and rentgr.com