Springfield Short Term Rentals? (Ozark, Commerce: extended stay, apartments, hotel)

[ndflicks]

Ahhhhhh... relocation! The missus and I are knee deep in the 'here vs. there' debate, luckily it's all friendly and I haven't been residing in the doghouse(yet).

One key point we keep coming back to is: Where to stay when trying to find the right 'permanent' address? We intend to rent for a while first, however a year's lease sight unseen is too risky(did it once, came out very well but hesitant to try again) and we just don't have the means/time to head out for a few week-long visits first.

My experience thus-far is hit or miss with the weekly rate extended stay motels, any reccomendation on weekly/monthly rentals that wouldn't scare us would be great. I really want to feel things out before signing a full-sized lease.

We are: Mid 30's male- housebroken, mid 20's female- adorable, and cat-4 way declawed and sedate(we did NOT declaw her). Finding adequate housing while we begin our search for longer term housing may play a key role in where we end up heading.

Thank you so much for any input!

[NOLA2SGF]

MoMark stayed at Extended Stay America in south Springfield. Although I've never stayed there, from his description it sounds nice. Frank wants to give it a "test drive" and stay there the next time we are in Springfield for a few days.

We are planning to move to Springfield in 2009-2010. When we do, we might look at short term housing, or instead we think we might get an apartment with a six month lease. That way we will have time to get familiar with neighborhoods, buy, get through escrow, get the house ready to move into, and move, without any rush.

[Luvmygirls]

We are in the same situation as you are. I found an apartment in Ozark, MO that rents month by month. They are Excelsior Garden Apartments. I found them on apartment.com. If you go there you will find their 1-800 number. I should add that Ozark is just south of Springfield, MO. I'll be working in Springfield and plan to commute since it's only about 20 miles.

[ndflicks]

Great tip, thanks!

We have found a rental group that may handle what we're looking for as well as the full-term-lease apartments we eventually will be looking for. The name is The Wooten Co. They are registered with the Chamber of Commerce, have been in business 20+ years and the properties they rent overall have a good rating on apartmentratings.com. I'll let you know what I find out(just e-mailed them a lengthy list of needs, lol). If you are interested in looking into them, private message me for the link as I do not want to break advertising posting rules here on the forums.

We are moving from a medium-sized city, however we both grew up in large cities and even from Ozark, sub-hour commutes sound GREAT!

Good luck to you in your move and feel free to contact me here or in private if you want to keep up on our progress.

[ndflicks]

Finally heard back from The Wooten Co. No dice, it seems they don't want to or are unable to do business with 'outsiders'. It came as sort of a shock after all of the good advice, and nice people we seem to have found from Springfield. Guess we'll write this one off as an atypical representation of the area.

We're still looking for something short term(even up to 6 months) but this late in the game, we aren't able to go look around in person. We'll be moving in 5 weeks and are likely stuck starting with a 'by the week' motel- which are sometimes great, sometimes scary.

Time to be bold/brazen I guess. If the pioneers could do it, we can too. While it would be nice to make arrangements ahead of time for temporary lodging, we're heading out June 1st with or without.

I have heard reference to Red Roof Inns(particularly appealing due to our cat) and Extended Stay America. ESA was not able to offer us a weekly rate/discount by phone and apparently it's offered on a location by location basis. So far, same for Red Roof but they have a local number(no one picked up when I called). ESA would also require us to board the cat($75/week). If anyone can tell me what the rates were/are when they have stayed, it would give us a frame of reference. Feel free to private message me.

Any other suggestions for immediate short term lodging would be great too. I just can't rationalize $1000 a month for a room.

[NOLA2SGF]

Try the website for Extended Stay America.

http://www.extendedstayamerica.com/

Try using their "Find a Hotel" form on the left of that webpage to get a rate for a specific number of people and timeframe, to see what you can find out. I noticed a difference in rates between a proposed overnight stay at the South Springfield location, and staying a couple of weeks there, for example. Their website also provides other information that might be useful.

Hope this helps!