Flat / house hunting near Richmond Airport (Chester, East Highland Park: apartments, rental, condos)

[GermanUser]

Hi everyone!

Because of a new job I´ll be moving from Germany to Richmond between October to November. One of the big challenges for me will be to find a flat or house to rent for my wife, my 7 months old son and myself at least for the next two years.

The office of my new employer is currently in TomLynn Street, but will relocate to a new building next to the Richmond International Airport by the end of the year.

So I´m searching for a nice and quiet place somewhere in the north/east/south of the Airport. It shouldn´t be too far away from Richmond and the Airport itself but not too close because of the noise of the planes (well, perhaps we can not avoid this).

Currently I´m already staying in Richmond for the next three weeks, to take a look at my new job and so I´ll try to start looking for possible objects by the way.

Unfortunately I just don´t know where to start... Do you have any advices for me? Any realtor that you would recommend?

Regards

Ralf

[vman650]

I have lived in the east end and I hated it. I lived near a railroad train intersection which would wake me up in the middle of the night when the train blew its horn several times at 2 in the morning. I was also near the Richmond Dragway which made going into my back yard on weekends impossible. We carefully investigated the area on weekdays before buying, but we never checked out the property on weekends. We made sure that airplane noise was not a problem and it wasn't. Make sure you check out airplane noise on both sunny and cloudy days as flight patterns may change. The house sat on 10 acres and it appeared to be real country. I might as well have been living in times square, it was so noisy. During storms, we seemed to loose power constantly and it took forever for the power company to turn it back on. We wound up having to buy a generator so that we could remain in the house during power outages. There was limited shopping and we had to drive 10 miles to go to a mall or major supermarket. The speed limit on the road running past my house was 55 mph to accommodate the many commercial vehicles which used it as a through road.A beautiful new mall has been built with lots of restaurants and shopping so long drives are no longer necessary. The east end in slowly improving and expanding, but I would never want to live there again. Just because it did not suit me, does not mean that you will not like it. Thousands of people live there and love it. I hope this helps you in your planning.

[DownEastB]

What about Cold Harbor, which is northeast of the airport?

[GermanUser]

Hi vman650!

Thank you for sharing your experience and giving me your advice. I´ll keep it in mind when I finally find time to look at some houses.

Hi DownEastB!

You are right: The more I think about it, the more I get pleased about a house in the north to Richmond. But I guess Cold Harbor is some minutes too far away. The place that is called "East Highland Park" on GoogleMaps looks good to me.

My Problem is still how to find rental houses. Most of the webpages are focused on selling houses and rental houses seem to be quite rare.

Do you have any advice which is the best way to find houses to rent?

Regards

Ralf

[540_804]

richmond apts/housing for rent classifieds - craigslist

For rental properties (houses, apartments/flats, condos, etc)

[GermanUser]

Hi 540-804!

Thats a great link!

Thank You!!!!!!

[DownEastB]

Hotpads.com has a lot of rental houses in the Richmond area, too.

[onevthoki]

You might want to look in the Enon area of Chesterfield County. You can hop on I295 to get to the airport and it's about 22 miles one-way once you are on the interstate. Definitely an easy drive!