Looking for a place for June/July (Burlington, Orleans: apartments, lease)

[darky]

Hi y'all,
the summer is coming (why, yes!), my family is moving... Or let's say I'm moving my family... Anyhoo, the plan goes like this : I'll fly in with the baby (2.5 year old) in Burlington or Montreal and stay with my parents for a couple of days (or enough to have a party) in my hometown in Quebec, then rent an apartment on AirBnB for a couple of weeks so we can find something permanent... My question is... Do you think I will need more time than 2 weeks in June to find an apartment in Burlington for July? Any tricks I should know about? All I rely on is ole craigs'list but anything else that could be helpful, aside from driving around looking for for rent signs?

You think is way too short notice looking for a place in June for July? Or doable?

Also neighborhoods.. I'm looking at North End, how is that? I don't know yet how our budget is going to be, I'm really hoping I will get that good job I was told about but won't know for another couple of months... But will be looking for a (small) 2 bedroom under $1200, is that possible in Burlington?

[Oriz]

Sorry but only if it is a dump. Burlington apartments are expensive. Also, the old north end is not a neighborhood I would personally want to live in, it is the closest thing to a "ghetto" neighborhood that vermont has to offer(I didn't say it was one, just the closest you would find here, and no offense). The new north end is different but of course more expensive. I think you would have better luck looking in the places around burlington like colchester, milton(a bed community for burlington), etc. Also I think two weeks are too short. My wife and I when we arrived found a place in milton after 1.5 weeks, and that was cause we looked every single day, and got very lucky. We found ours on craigslist, but beware of scams. There were a few we noticed that only send you emails and of course we knew to ignore them.

[darky]

Well, we decided on Burlington because we won't have a car right away (although I saved my whole tax refund for that purpose), we will be coming from a "bigger" city and I don't want to, hum, traumatize my husband (although he is longing for some peace and quiet). So how ghetto does the north end gets? Gunshots every night? If not, it's not ghetto lol (compared to here anyway...) When you're talking about "dump" apartments... What do you mean?
Am definitely aware of scams!!!

Thanks for your input!!

I'm also thinking that we need to live outside Burlington, I'm just wondering how to "play" it. How to buy a car AND move (starting with finding a place) AND start a new job all at the same time (especially with a toddler). Lorde lord! All I'm doing right now is save save save $. I guess I will be lining up viewings asap and hope for the best. I guess I could also rent a car until we buy one... I wonder how expensive that would be...?

[Oriz]

You could probably find a car to rent for $20-30 a day. We rented one for two days and then found our 01 Jeep Grand Cherokee which we bought for just over $5,000. We pretty much went against everything everyone always tells you to do. We came here without a vehicle, without an apartment and without having jobs lined up but made it work with the type of work I do and the business we opened.

There aren't gunshots every night not even close. That's why I said it isn't quite ghetto, just the closest thing you will find in this area. Trust me I hear ya as my wife is from Milwaukee so anywhere here is low crime compared to that.

When I say dump apartments I'm talking about slanted floors, rotten wood etc. Before we found our milton apartment we looked at the old north end at one apartment for around your price range and we left there looked at each other and went 'uh, no'.

[Vermonr]

The North End isn't as bad as everyone says it is, in my opinion. There are many streets that are actually very peaceful, pleasant, and neighborly. It's the only part of Burlington that has affordable houses and allows you to still easily walk to the center of the city. Most neighbors know each other, many have kids, and I get the sense that they do look out for each other. BUT some streets are not as pleasant or safe. Avoid the area around North Street west of Union Street. The streets around Pearl will mostly be college students and very noisy on weekends. If you need advice about individual streets feel free to message me, as I walk quite a bit and know them well.

2 weeks is probably not enough time to find an apartment. Apartment hunting in Burlington is nothing like other cities. Remember that Burlington has a 1% vacancy rate- this means that competition is very high and landlords/apartments can be terrible (because they'll end up renting them anyways, with so many people needing housing). Don't be too proud to cosign on a lease, if the landlord requires it, and if you find a place that you like jump on it IMMEDIATELY. To put that in perspective, when I found the apartment I wanted I drove an hour to meet my parents that night, had them cosign, and then drove back to my landlord to get the apartment that day. I cannot stress this enough- sometimes if you wait a day the apartment will be gone.

Can you go check out the apartments in person? Many older houses have warping floors, and it's helpful to see the street in person. As far as scams go...if it's advertised as 600 with a community pool and utilities included...yeah definitely a scam. There are no apartments like that in downtown Burlington. And for a two bedroom 1200 would be at the low end, and that might be with no utilities/parking. Make sure the apt. has parking if you want a car because street parking is tight.

[Vermonr]

Oh and I should also add, the best time to look for an apartment is in April/May when the students are moving out.

[RainbowHope]

Just a different angle to try: On Craigslist, there is a section where people can post that need housing. Usually the listings are people in unique situations, like they have pets, or they need a short lease term, etc. Maybe you could post what you are looking for, and when, and someone will respond? I rented my house by reading these ads and found an amazing tenant that needed a short term lease.

[darky]

Thank you all for your responses!

Oriz it's good to read positive feed backs from such a move. I am the kind of person who believes that life is what you make of it
As far as dumps, no rotten wood thank you! Here in New Orleans, no matter how clean you are, in which neighborhood you live, there will be cockroaches crawling in your house 10 months out of the year. Mold is a real bad problem, we rented two apartments infected with mold and got really sick. Thank God we moved out of there! And as far as dangerous neighborhoods, well I don't feel threatened in my house, but I get really sick of hearing of all the shootings happening around me and downtown, where both hubby and I work. I put aside $4500 for a car, I was hoping that would cover everything (well, maybe not winter tires but at least the plates and such). If we have to rent to own, that could do too I imagine. Jeep Cherokee, sounds good to me!!!! hehe

Vermonr, I will be viewing houses (apt lol) in VT in person pretty much the whole month of June, but I was going to take it easy... I guess I won't loll!! My parents can't DEFINITELY co-sign! I knew looking IN June compared to FOR June would probably be a problem... But that's how we made the plans, and no way we can look in April-May, unless my parents do it for us... I have a feeling we probably will end up outside of Burlington lol, which is fine. We were even interested in St-Albans, small small town but maybe more around what we're looking for...? I don't know. Thanks though for your extensive response.

RainbowHope I will definitely give that a try!! Thank you!

[Oriz]

St Albans may be a lil too far, before we rented we also considered it, but then when you keep driving there from burlington you realize it's a lil further than you thought, or so it feels anyway.

However it is a pretty cool town for a small town, and has more of a "big city" variety of things. That is where you will find places you will mostly only find in burlington, such as certain shops or restaurants.

[darky]

Yeah thing is, if I do get that job I really want, I will work from home... And my husband being a disabled vet, his main gig right now is caring for our toddler when I'm at work. He does like to play street music (although would rather have club gigs) for extra money, but I don't think it should be our only reason to live in the city.

Also, I'm from QC, so the drive would be even faster from St Albans to Quebec

I saw an ad on craigslist regarding an amazing house in Orleans (haha just a coincidence!!!), any thoughts on that town?