Relocating to Seattle. (Roosevelt: apartment complexes, house, neighbourhoods)

[maazabbasi]

I am moving to Seattle in July to start working at UW Medical Center. I have lived all my life in Houston. My wife and I were up there last week to look at some apartments. We liked the Greenlake area a lot and saw a couple of new apartment buildings that we liked, Circa Greenlake and Florera. The other area we liked was Lake Union where we liked Dexter lake Union and neptune. We also saw a couple of places on Market street, but were not all that impressed with the apartments there.
We would appreciate some advice on the neighbourhoods and the above apartment complexes. The greenlake apartments are a little more expensive than what we initially planned on spending but we are willing to re-budget to live there.
Thank you.

[baboo]

how close do you want to be to your work? The public transportation here is pretty bad and the parking costs are astronomical, so I would advise you to either live very close to work and bike or find an area that is connected well through our limited public transportation services. There are hubs around Seattle where all the buses run through, but if you live outside of these hubs, it's just awful. On the upside, it is relatively bike friendly here. There are a lot of shared lanes and bike paths that you can use, the only problem is that it rains all the time. So waterproof clothing and a change of clothes is a must.

Secondly, I'm not sure what your budget is but greenlake can be quite pricey. If you like that area you might want to look more into greeenwood and phinney ridge area because it's actually connected to greenlake, but the prices are a fair bit lower. Are you looking for a house or an apartment? I would recommend these places, they are close to the UW medical center (i'm guessing that it's the one next the university because they have several branches)
--Sandpoint (very residential but there are nice parks and a golf course in the area)
--as I mentionned, Greenwood/Phinney Ridge
--Wallingford (it is a little pricey though)
-- Eastlake (also pricey but it's right on lake union)
--Ravenna/Roosevelt area (it's near green lake and it's more affordable, plus there is a whole foods right there)
--Wedgewood (mostly residential but the housing is more affordable)
--Fremont (pricey but they have nice apartments and it's a very fun place to live)
--Ballard (Market st is the main street but there is more to ballard than market street and I know that they have been doing a ton of development there)

---> stay away from the University district, it's over priced and badly maintained for the most part
--- other places to avoid due to cost, crime, location, etc.:
---rainier
---international district
---south seattle/burien
---downtown area (it's just too expensive)
---North Seattle around Aurora Ave and lake city


hope this helped.