Fredericksburg Rentals (apartment complex, condo, transfer)

[lehjr7]

Why, hello there. So the short story is me, my girlfriend, and our cat moved up to Stafford from Miami about 2 years ago for a job offer. We since have changed jobs and gained another cat, but the boring atmosphere and high prices of Stafford has finally got to us. We would like to move to Fredericksburg in late August (lease is over August 31st). We both work for PetSmart. She's a groomer, and I'm a Merchandising Lead. I'll be getting promoted to manager in the next few months, but the catch is my girlfriend would have to transfer stores (favoritism and stuff), so she'd be going to the Central Park store.

Our absolute maximum budget is 1000 a month for utilities and rent, and it's pretty hard to find a decent place to be quite honest. We'd like to live relatively close to Central Park or in Downtown/Historic Fredericksburg. We currently only have one car and I'd need it to commute to Stafford, so we want it to be relatively easy for her to get to work on bike/bus. We're not very picky, but we'd actually prefer a small place that won't have an issue with our cats. A studio, a basement apartment, a condo, a duplex, whatever. We drove through the areas today and looked at a few apartment complexes. I've never liked apartment complexes, so we'd prefer something else.

So, my questions:

1. Does anyone know of a unit that will be available in this time frame, around this location, and within this budget? This includes efficiency's, studios, basements, or room mate situations.

2. Is anyone else moving here (preferably a like-minded couple, we're in our mid 20s) around that time that would possibly want to split a 2 bedroom unit?

3. Does anyone have any suggestions of a Realtor I can use to find a decent rental? I've exhausted a great deal of rental websites, so I'd prefer an actual human that can help me out.

4. Does anyone recommend a good apartment complex in the area? I'd like to avoid them, but need to tun over every stone, and I find apartmentratings.com to be very ignorant.

5. Any other advice at all for us? We'd appreciate anything you have to add.

Thanks a lot for your time