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As for rents and where to look... maybe it's just another disconnect in terminology, but if you mean the Woodlawn that's within the 695 belt, I consider that part of the "Baltimore area" that I'm referring to. When most people talk about a major city, especially one they don't live in, they generally refer to it and its suburbs as a group using the name of the main, central city. Otherwise they'd get into sentences with about three dozen place names in them every time they opened their mouths. For example, I often say that I lived in "Cincinnati" or "the Cincinnati area" for over a decade. I actually lived within the Cincinnati city limits for only four or five of those years, but I spent the rest in the suburbs, and most people understand that in this context, "Cincinnati" is shorthand for "Cincinnati and its suburbs". My friends who live in the suburbs of places like Chicago, LA and Houston use the same type of shorthand. Really, it's quite common. Can we just assume going forward that I mean basically anything in a 15-mile radius? Because I'm really not looking to necessarily live within the city proper.
Talking down to people that you're asking for help is not the way to go. We do not need a lesson in semantics. Simply put, we were trying to correct the difference between Baltimore and Baltimore County for you so going forward more people aren't confused.
Here you either live in Baltimore, the city, or you live in Baltimore County, the county. I've lived in the city for years and now live in the county hence instead of saying I live in the "Baltimore Area" which will confuse people into thinking I live in "Baltimore City" I tell them I live in "Baltimore County" because I live in Baltimore County. Because both are strikingly different, it is hard to help when everyone else thinks you're talking about the city.
Regarding your OP you will have better luck looking for rentals in the area mentioned by End-User are more realistic for the amount you're looking to spend but then figure on having a longer commute. Most homes in the County start around $1100 and the City is similar.
Agree with this...I think it may be tough to find an office support job for more than $40K, regardless of how much experience you have. Maybe if someone has already been working at the company in Baltimore for 20+ years they may be making that much, but not sure if a company will hire an outside person at that salary.
That's not how it works in most places. Companies have a tough time hiring people in from outside if they expect all new hires to take a massive pay cut.
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I think you can find something under $1000, but I think earlier you had said about $800, and that may be tough. I would maybe check out Pikesville or Mt. Washington. Pikesville is just over the Baltimore County line (but most of it is inside 695), while Mt. Washington is on the outer edges of the city limits (but they are pretty much right next to each other).
Anything over $800 would require me to have roommates, which I really don't want.
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Originally Posted by davecj
Talking down to people that you're asking for help is not the way to go. We do not need a lesson in semantics. Simply put, we were trying to correct the difference between Baltimore and Baltimore County for you so going forward more people aren't confused.
I'm not talking down to anyone, though I feel as though I'm being talked down to. If you (generic "you") were to go and visit two friends in two different suburbs of (for example) Chicago in one trip, would you tell someone, "I'm going to _____ and _____ next week" or would you just say, "I'm going to Chicago next week"? Most people would choose the latter, and that's all I'm saying here.
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Here you either live in Baltimore, the city, or you live in Baltimore County, the county. I've lived in the city for years and now live in the county hence instead of saying I live in the "Baltimore Area" which will confuse people into thinking I live in "Baltimore City" I tell them I live in "Baltimore County" because I live in Baltimore County. Because both are strikingly different, it is hard to help when everyone else thinks you're talking about the city.
Trust me, 90% of people who don't live there don't know and don't care. And if what I'm looking for is unclear to anyone in this thread, they haven't been reading. I've only clarified it about a dozen times now. I'm fine with city or county, though I prefer county. Clear?
And believe it or not, I already knew the difference before I ever started this thread; I just assumed most people would understand the use of shorthand and have no real problem with it, especially once I'd explained what I was looking for. Even friends of mine who live or have lived there use that same shorthand I'm using when they're talking in the context of being outside of the area or to someone from outside. They don't require "correction" in every conversation, and frankly, neither do I. This isn't school.
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Regarding your OP you will have better luck looking for rentals in the area mentioned by End-User are more realistic for the amount you're looking to spend but then figure on having a longer commute. Most homes in the County start around $1100 and the City is similar.
My current commute is a 30-mile round trip. While I obviously wouldn't mind having a shorter one (or for that matter, being able to utilize public transportation), I'm completely fine with driving that kind of distance or even a bit more if the money is right.
Last edited by OutsideIn; 01-13-2012 at 11:55 AM..
Hey OP, if you're going to be this high strung upon your arrival in Baltimore I think you're going to be in for a surprise. We tolerate a lot of BS in this city but that type of attitude will get you nowhere. Also pick up a sense of humor along the way.
Hey OP, if you're going to be this high strung upon your arrival in Baltimore I think you're going to be in for a surprise. We tolerate a lot of BS in this city but that type of attitude will get you nowhere. Also pick up a sense of humor along the way.
So are you saying the primary local pastime in Baltimore is "correcting" other people's speech? Jeez, if that's true, then I'm surprised anyone even bothers to visit or move there at all.
Thing is, I've been to Baltimore. No one there, friend or stranger, has ever done that to me. So maybe the problem here isn't me. Seems to me like one particular point has been belabored and done to death, while removing the focus from the initial question that was asked. So what if I, like many Americans, tend to refer to a city and its suburbs taken together by the name of the central city? That's hardly an "attitude", or if it is, then millions of people share it.
Jumping all over someone repeatedly for doing what's considered perfectly normal by millions of Americans seems like more of an attitude problem to me.
But I'll say one thing: if I didn't have personal friends in the area who are salt of the earth and very pleasant, most of what I've read from people in this thread would give me a very low opinion of the friendliness of people in Baltimore or anywhere in its environs. Do you all take turns standing at the city limits -- sorry, county line -- to pick on tourists, too?
And I have a great sense of humor when I don't feel like the new kid in school who's getting hazed. How about everyone stops throwing crap at me and we'll see if that makes a difference, okay?
Last edited by OutsideIn; 01-13-2012 at 06:13 PM..
One last try at clearing this up and moving beyond it:
What on earth do the rest of you here prefer a person to say when they're referring to both Baltimore City and Baltimore County, collectively, in a conversation? Apparently, I haven't managed yet to hit upon an acceptable term for that, even though it's actually what I thought I was talking about all along. Is there some code word? Some arcane third name for the area that only people who live there (and hang out on this forum) actually know, like some weird verbal secret handshake?
I mean, seriously, c'mon. If there's a single proper term to encompass the idea of both or of an even slightly wider area (say, fringes of the surrounding counties still within less than a 20-mile drive from the city center, as I encounter with many other places), then someone please tell me what it is.
Last edited by OutsideIn; 01-13-2012 at 07:44 PM..
where do your friends live? how close are you with them? If you want to live in the county, and say you end up living in Reisterstown, but your friends live in Dundalk, you probably won't be seeing them very much.
forgetting the whole Baltimore city/county thing for a second, you also seem in denial about what type of salary or rent you'll get, even though several comments and suggestions have been offered. You won't really know for sure about the salary until you get an interview and talk about your salary requirements and see what they say. As far as rents, you said you were scouring craigslist, and craigslist probably is the best place to look for rentals in the Baltimore area. I just did a very quick search myself and it seemed like there were several results coming up in Middle River, which isn't too bad, so that could be another place to look into. Now take a break from feeling attacked and go look for apartments in any one of the many areas that have been suggested...
Okay, so Baltimore metro area, then. Is that specific enough to make everyone happy?
Only reason I didn't use that in the first place is because the last time I referred to someplace as a metro area (in meatspace, about eight years ago) someone else got bent out of shape because they couldn't see how it included this weird little semi-rural pocket that sat between two thriving suburbs and insisted that there was no such thing as a metro area the way people usually say it. Definitely one of those "you can't please everyone" situations, but it made me leery of using the term at all anywhere.
where do your friends live? how close are you with them? If you want to live in the county, and say you end up living in Reisterstown, but your friends live in Dundalk, you probably won't be seeing them very much.
I have several, and they're spread out all over the area. Most of us know each other from having met over the years at national gatherings of various organizations we belong to, and have developed our friendships from there. It isn't just one person, or a couple. It's about a dozen people. So I'm not worried about that part, because no matter which ones I live closest to, I'll be equally far away from others.
That said, my circle of friends where I live now are similarly spread out, and we still see each other several times a month.
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forgetting the whole Baltimore city/county thing for a second, you also seem in denial about what type of salary or rent you'll get, even though several comments and suggestions have been offered.
I've been given several conflicting comments and suggestions, ranging from the thought that I can't really base much on the ads I've been seeing with low pay rates (probably true) to the thought that no one in the area pays admin assistants very much. Though when I asked, it turned out that this second bit of information was based on the pay rates of admin assistants with 5 years of experience or less. Knowing that employers nearly everywhere generally pay more for experience (something I've learned over many years spent in the workforce), I'm not willing to assume that my 20 years of experience will get me no more money than someone with only a year or two would earn, because common sense says otherwise. Common sense could be completely wrong and so could I, but I hope we aren't.
As for rents, most everything I've seen has been for complexes, and I know -- again from direct experience in other places -- that private landlords often charge lower rents. The problem is that (for any city, not just metro Baltimore) it's getting harder and harder to find listings by private landlords online, because a lot of the major newspapers' websites send all online queries regarding rentals directly to the websites that promote apartment complexes. But I've been assured in private messages here on City-Data that such landlords do exist in metro Baltimore, and that I'll simply have to do some legwork to find them. I've found a few on Craiglist already; the problem with many Craigslist ads is that you don't always get a good idea of what the area around the rental is actually like. Hence my curiosity and my desire to ask questions.
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You won't really know for sure about the salary until you get an interview and talk about your salary requirements and see what they say.
Very true. I basically was just looking for some idea that not all support-industry people were having to live in crowded shared housing with roommates because of artificially low wages or something. Like I said, I'm getting just a little paranoid about this stuff. Call it a reaction to the crummy economy, perhaps. Things aren't good anywhere, though they're better in some places than in others.
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As far as rents, you said you were scouring craigslist, and craigslist probably is the best place to look for rentals in the Baltimore area. I just did a very quick search myself and it seemed like there were several results coming up in Middle River, which isn't too bad, so that could be another place to look into.
Saw a couple of those myself this evening. Ironically, that's probably the one place furthest from anyone I know, but then again, that isn't a deal-breaker. And situations on this thread notwithstanding, I actually do make friends pretty easily, so I could move into a suburb or neighborhood and have new friends just down the street a week later.
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Now take a break from feeling attacked and go look for apartments in any one of the many areas that have been suggested...
Heh. Probably right after I pour myself a glass of wine (long week; was going to go out tonight but I'm too damn tired).
I can't answer your questions with regards to Baltimore/moving, but I can bring some prospective to the issue regarding pay/experience. Due to this recession the employment market is an employer’s market. It has certainly become widespread practice over the past couple of years for employers to lower the starting pay of jobs offered, regardless of experience/degree. Case in point. I am a litigation paralegal with over 15 years of experience. I live in a nice size major city. According to Salary.com, a paralegal with my experience should be 45k in a regular-size metro. However, many advertisements for paralegals with this type of experience list $12.00 to $15.00 per hour as starting salary, which is ridic. I seriously laugh when I see a law firm advertising for a paralegal with over 7 years of specialized experience, degreed AND credentialed and staring pay is $13.00.
Unfortunately, paralegals with this experience end up taking these jobs. Why? The high unemployment rate. Now I'm not saying every single employer is doing this, however a LOT are. The ones that aren't are the ones that don't need to advertise on craigslist list or other jobs, or major employers with stellar reputations. I was looking at NYC ads for paralegals and some were not paying more than $15.00 per hour. Again in NYC. This goes for executive assistant positions $12.00 per hour, admin assistant $10.00 per hour and many more support-type positions. When I was laid off I looked at all these positions and most of them were low paying. The ones that were offered regular pay basically wanted not only years of experience and a Bachelor's Degree, but a certain number of years of experience in a certain niche. And this is all over the country.
If you’re going to use your agency you may have better luck sticking to a higher income bracket, but then again, maybe not, but unfortunately it’s very heard of for positions that used to pay higher salaries for experience, to now pay less, and demand the same if not MORE from the applicant.
I believe what people are saying to answer your question about living arrangements for non-management employees is those that can afford to live by themselves at the higher rental rate are doing so by actually commuting to DC where pay IS higher. It may be that most who live by themselves in the Baltimore are already established in companies where they continue to make the usual standard salary rather than the lower pay that has come out recently. It will be harder for those like yourself, who are moving in this economy or others who have recently gotten jobs where their pay has been slashed, to continue living by themselves with the rising rental prices -- so your question will be hard to answer as there are a few circumstances that surround who lives how.
I hope this helps, at least with THAT issue. Good luck.
Last edited by Jeepchic; 01-13-2012 at 09:36 PM..
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Probably right after I pour myself a glass of wine (long week; was going to go out tonight but I'm too damn tired).
