Moving to Fayetteville (college, directions, town)

[OurGreatEscape]

@acup313--I would not wait until July unless you seriously do not care where you live.

UofA graduation was Saturday. Campus was dead this morning! Summer school starts in less than two weeks.

What does all this mean? Now is the time to act if you want your choice of better properties. Graduates will be moving (hopefully) to real jobs, leaving good properties behind.

[debzkidz]

Originally Posted by OurGreatEscape

@acup313--I would not wait until July unless you seriously do not care where you live.

UofA graduation was Saturday. Campus was dead this morning! Summer school starts in less than two weeks.

What does all this mean? Now is the time to act if you want your choice of better properties. Graduates will be moving (hopefully) to real jobs, leaving good properties behind.

I agree. I was there last week and there were "for Rent" signs all over the area around campus. Summer school starts a week from today. So things will be picking back up. Now is the time to find something.

[acup313]

My problem with going now is two fold. First, I can't get away from my job for more than a weekend at this point, and even going on the weekend is almost impossible since we are showing our house so much. Number 2, I will need to stay at my job here until the end of July and I can't really afford to make house payments and rental payments for very long and I don't think someone will hold a rental house for me for two and a half months without paying rent. If I get my house sold soon though I will definitely go looking immediately as I will be able to afford the rent then. Thank you again for the help though.

[OurGreatEscape]

Keep in mind, some landlords actually put signs out BEFORE their properties are vacant. A sign may be up now but the current tenant may not move out until the end of June or July.

Perhaps you should call one of the bigger property management companies which rent single family homes? Lazenby always seems to have a big supply.

The University (off-campus student dept.) should have a list of rental properties too. I don't know how in depth it is though.

[thewizard16]

Hello acup,
Craigslist in Fayetteville is generally very active with rental properties, more so than the classified ads, so as you'd mentioned, that may be your best bet. There are some large leasing companies around (Lindsey and Associates is huge), but I've had better luck searching on my own. There really isn't a bad part of town, but there are a couple blocks on Leverett Avenue that aren't very attractive (old rental houses and apartments) and a few places on School Avenue and South Fayetteville that are also old/a bit run-down looking, but there's no real high-crime areas or neighborhoods with bars on the windows if that's what you're worried about. Personally, the west section of Fayetteville (areas around Wedington Drive) are some of my favorite areas for family-friendly places and reasonably priced rentals. North Fayetteville is also nice, but a bit newer and more generic. It's also quite a ways from the UofA.

Another thing to consider is the Razorback Transit bus routes. If you're going to be spending a lot of time at the UofA, take advantage of their free bus service. It runs full routes from 6:30am to 6pm and then reduced service until 10:30pm. If you find a place on one of their bus routes (they have ten routes), you wouldn't have to fight with traffic/parking/walking up the hill from a parking lot to get to campus. I lived on the Tan route (one of the west Fayetteville routes) and loved the bus service- clean, free, and on-time. Plus, parking on campus is a headache.

[LocalType]

Hi acup!

Fayetteville doesn't have too many 'bad' areas. There are some areas more iffy than others, such as south and parts of southeast, but a lot of it has cleaned up in recent years and there's some building happening. They really are not the same as they were even 5 years ago, and in another 5, I imagine they will be even better.

I had an hour to kill so I threw together a map of Fayetteville with some circled areas just off the top of my head that I could describe to you. I've lived all over this city in the past 20 years. By far my favorite area is around Dickson Street, the Square, and the University (all one small area). There are a lot of great, old houses in those areas and many apartments for rental in them, many are very reasonably priced, but you have to time it right, such as right when school lets out, or at least by mid-late July (but that's cutting it really close, because college kids and their parents start coming in late July/early August to check the town out and find apartments). Btw, this map does not list every area and every detail. Just some. It's just to give you an idea of what you're looking at on a map.

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/178...villeareas.jpg

Also, just FYI, try to avoid College Avenue during rush hours. We try to avoid it all the time. But for people not familiar with the city, it's the easiest way for you to get from A to B since it runs the length of the entire city. When school starts, College is choked and locals will go to great lengths to go through any number of other suburbs in order to avoid, so secondary routes like 45, Mission, Old Wire, Gregg, 112 (Garland), Crossover, etc., get heavily trafficked.

P.S. What was said about how we still call MLK "6th Street" is correct. You will also notice people saying "265" when they mean Crossover, and "45" when they mean Lafayette Street or Mission Blvd. east of the university campus. However, College is usually called "College", not 71. Those of us that have been here a long time sometimes refer to Fulbright Expressway as "71", but I have never said "Fulbright Expressway" in my life.

[thewizard16]

Originally Posted by LocalType

Hi acup!


http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/178...villeareas.jpg

That's a very impressive resource! Having lived in several areas around Fayetteville, I think your comments are spot on. I may ask permission to steal that map in the future for a resource- I often have to send families around town house/apartment shopping and they might find that useful.

[acup313]

This is awesome. Thanks so much.

[LocalType]

Originally Posted by thewizard16

That's a very impressive resource! Having lived in several areas around Fayetteville, I think your comments are spot on. I may ask permission to steal that map in the future for a resource- I often have to send families around town house/apartment shopping and they might find that useful.

You are more than welcome to spread that around - I hope it's helpful to anyone who might be looking to relocate to Fayetteville.

[travelinggirl1000]

People will automatically rule out Springdale but I have to say that southern Springdale around the Lake Fayetteville area is great for kids and families. There are cul-de-sac neighborhoods just west of the trail that are really nice and much more affordable than some areas in Fayetteville. Also, there are two elementary schools and a middle school right around that area. Check it out. Ask a realtor to check out the MLS for you. Good luck!