Bloomington/Normal Apartments (Champaign: apartment complex, renters, condos)

[smltwngrl0570]

Does anyone have any suggestions on apartments in the bloomington/normal area that are near the campus and allow for small pets?

[MANaret]

Originally Posted by smltwngrl0570

Does anyone have any suggestions on apartments in the bloomington/normal area that are near the campus and allow for small pets?

I'm in the same situation. I'm moving from Florida to get my master's at ISU. Have a wife and cat, need an apartment. I've been doing a lot of internet searching. I've found the following sites particularly helpful:

1) Apartments for rent - ApartmentFinder.com (It seems to have the biggest list of apartments. Also, they provide links to the apartments' websites)
2) Apartment Ratings :: The leading source of apartment reviews by renters for renters. (If you've rented before, you probably already know about this site. Take the reviews with a grain of salt, some people are way too thin-skinned).

And to a lesser degree:
Apartments.com | Find Apartments for Rent, Houses, Condos and Townhomes | Rental Listings
Apartments for Rent and Homes for Rent

So far nothing has really stood out as the clear best of Normal-Bloomington. Let me know if you visit and find something you really like (and is relatively inexpensive). Since it is a bit of a trip to go from FL to IL, I'm open to hearing anyone's experiences.

[BusyPacking]

I am guessing that by the lack of activity on this thread that there are not that many options for rentals in the BN area. We are in the same boat as the other folks who have posted here. We are moving from out-of-state and are trying to find a rental in a good school district, but it seems that there are not many options. I have tried local property management companies; however, by the time we get our application fee/deposit to them (under 24 hrs) the property has been snacthed up by another renter. We have looked in the Pantagraph, but nothing that will meet our needs seems to be available. It seems that local relators do not work with rentals either. How does one go about finding a decent family rental in a good area with good schools in the BN area? Any ideas would be great...us out-of-towners are a bit lost!

[MANaret]

I just got back from an apartment search in Bloomington/Normal.

We ended up going with an apartment a bit further away from campus. The best one we found near ISU was Lancaster Heights, but they don't allow full-time students (unless you have a roommate that is going to work full-time).

We went with the Brickyard Apartments. They were a bit expensive ($820/month for 2 bed/2 bath with water, garbage, + sewage), but out of all the apartments we looked at, they were the best for us.

We didn't check out too many places in Normal because my wife is probably going to get a job in Champaign and we didn't want the drive to be too long. We did notice that the drive from one side of Bloomington/Normal to the opposite side took no more than 15 minutes. So, I wouldn't be concerned about proximity to ISU if you have a car.

Here our some of our impressions on the apartments we visited:

1) Brickyard - The best by default. It has nice size apartments. They allow pets. If you want to live on your own, a one bedroom is very nice (we were considering getting a one bedroom for a while). It is in a weird area (The back of a parking lot for TGI Fridays and Panera Bread. There are also a bunch of car dealerships in the area).

2) Lancaster Heights - A close second in our search. The prices are rent controlled, but the neighborhood didn't seem sleazy (like the rent controlled neighborhoods some times do). The apartments were showing their age, but the layout wasn't bad. Also, it is just down the street from ISU. We were turned off by the lack of washer/dryer in the unit (they only had a set of coin operated machines in the basement of each building).

3) Brookridge Heights - The newest and best looking apartment complex. They are expensive and on the far southeast side of town. We probably would have gone with them if they didn't have an insane policy about cats. According to the lady we talked to, all cats have to be declawed in order to move in. It's almost impossible to find a vet that declaws cats in Florida (where we currently live). Also, since our cat is already a couple of years old, it is too late to have her declawed. If you don't have a cat or have it declawed, Brookridge Heights is a really good option. The management also seemed to be the friendliest.

4) Goose Creek - Before I visited Bloomington-Normal, this was my top choice. It looks nice on rent.com, it has 100% approval on apartmentratings.com, and it is close to I55 and I74. The property actually was pretty decent, but the lady showing us around was terrible. It was almost as if it was a huge chore to take us to view the apartments. She didn't say a word about the apartments, she walked really fast (people consider me a fast walker and I was having trouble keeping up), and the whole time it felt like she was rushing through the viewing so she could get back to her computer (I'm guessing to look at facebook or myspace). Either that or she had a hangover (I'm assuming by the gow awful Playboy bunny tattoo on the ankle and the terrible bleached hair that she likes to party). Whatever her issue was, it caused my wife and I to drop Goose Creek from our list. It would still be worth checking out if you are looking for a place, just beware of who you have show you around.

5) Briarwood II - I don't remember too much about the apartments. I do remember that they are on the far north side, there was a bunch of road construction in the way, they are rent controlled, and they kind of felt like they were a slight step up from a trailer park. The price is pretty good if the rest of that doesn't turn you off.

6) Turnberry Village - The buildings look beautiful, the layout was really nice, and they are near a new movie theater. We were seriously considering moving here, but then we read the reviews on apartmentratings.com. I can't say if the reviews are accurate or not, but they were enough to scare us off. Outside of those reviews, everything looks nice and sounds pretty good.

7) The Arbors at Eastland - The model apartment we saw actually looked quite nice and the area didn't look too bad. For a day we were seriously considering them as an option. We came back the following afternoon to take another look around the property. The front area is really nice, but continuing to the back of the lot there were old buildings with boarded up windows, doors hanging off their hinges, and basically looking like the place should be condemned. It could be that they are in the process of tearing those old units down to build new ones, but we didn't want to take that chance.

8) Turnberry Square - For the most part, I try to find at least some good quality to balance out the negatives. For Turnberry Square, the only thing close to being good I could say is that they are cheap.

9) Ironwood Gardens - The area seemed pretty nice, but they didn't have any availability. So, we didn't see anything besides the lobby of the clubhouse.

Hopefully this will help anyone looking for apartments in B-N in the future.