Rental Housing in Dubuque for Ohio Couple (Craig: real estate, 2013)

[OhioBred]

Hello,

My spouse has accepted a position as a faculty member at University of Wisconsin-Platteville and we will be moving to the area probably in the beginning of August 2016. As we are relocating from Ohio, we'd like to rent a house or something comparable for at least the first year. Ideally, we'd like a garage included and we need a place that accepts cats. Most online sites such as Craiglist, Zillow, etc. haven't been too helpful and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions as far as areas to look at, websites for listings, or even real estate agencies that could help. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as we are planning on a trip out at the end of this month to look and hopefully find a place.

Thanks!

[atler8]

Originally Posted by OhioBred

Hello,

My spouse has accepted a position as a faculty member at University of Wisconsin-Platteville and we will be moving to the area probably in the beginning of August 2016. As we are relocating from Ohio, we'd like to rent a house or something comparable for at least the first year. Ideally, we'd like a garage included and we need a place that accepts cats. Most online sites such as Craiglist, Zillow, etc. haven't been too helpful and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions as far as areas to look at, websites for listings, or even real estate agencies that could help. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as we are planning on a trip out at the end of this month to look and hopefully find a place.

Thanks!

Have you been looking in Plattevilel itself? Given that it's a town dominated by the university there, it has long had a history of having a rental housing stock for students & faculty.
Have you checked in to see if there any resources at the university that are available to your spouse that could be helpful in your housing search?
I'm quite familiar with the route between Plattevile & Dubuque and would like to suggest that looking for a more local housing option right in or adjacent to Plattevile might be a good choice for a start.
Sure, Dubuque is a decent-sized small city so as to present more options but I probably am projecting my own abhorrence of long driving commutes in suggesting that your spouse would not want to add a 22 mile or so commute to his day if it was not necessary.
That being said, the route on U.S. 151 is a very good highway, or it was the last time I rode on it.

[OhioBred]

Thanks for the thoughts!

I posted this same message in the WI forum as we haven't ruled out Platteville. One reason we had begun to focus a bit more on Dubuque for housing is that from what we could find online, the rent prices in Dubuque seemed like more bang for buck.

[601halfdozen0theother]

I wouldn't want to do the drive back and forth from Dubuque to Platteville every day in the hard winter months. You could do it, I guess, but it would be stressful.

Live in Platteville; it's a really nice town.

[fezzador]

Distance-wise, Dubuque isn't that far from Platteville (18-20 miles or so) so it's doable even in the winter months, but you will probably want to get up a half hour earlier. My dad drove 35 miles each way to work every day for 20 years in central Iowa so you could certainly do a lot worse.

Dubuque is a really neat little city - easily the most scenic river city in Iowa (and arguably the most scenic city, period). It's right in the Driftless Area and there's tons of state parks (Effigy Mounds Nat'l Monument is within spitting distance), it has the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium (the only aquarium in the state of Iowa). You can easily make a day (or even weekend) trip out of it. In many ways it's a like a smaller Chattanooga.

[jasperhobbs]

Avoid living in Dubuque. The crime rate is on the rise and the city is very fiscally irresponsible.

[atler8]

Originally Posted by jasperhobbs

Avoid living in Dubuque. The crime rate is on the rise and the city is very fiscally irresponsible.

Would you please provide supporting data to support both of your contentions here about Dubuque?
And be mindful of what constitutes "rising crime" & our interpretations of it, as in does the data show a long term trend for an increase or does it show maybe a 1 year blip or nothing really at all?
Then as far as "..very fiscally irresponsible..." goes, how does Dubuque's overall debt factor look & is it's bond rating good &/or steady or is it in danger?
As they said in "Dragnet" long ago, "Just the facts..." please.

[fezzador]

This is a couple of years old, but it's probably not much different today:

From MSN.com:
> 5-year change in violent crime rate: -58.7%
> Violent crime per 100,000 (2009): 387.2
> Violent crime per 100,000 (2013): 159.8
> Murders per 100,000 (2013): 0.0
No metropolitan area reviewed had a greater drop in violent crime than Dubuque, Iowa. Less than 160 violent crimes were reported per 100,000 residents in 2013, down nearly 60% from 2009 when more than 387 crimes were reported per 100,000 people. Like only a handful of U.S. metropolitan areas, there were zero murders in Dubuque in 2013. Other crimes were similarly infrequent. Dubuque had an aggravated assault rate of just 104 per 100,000 people, for example, less than half the national rate of 229 per 100,000 Americans in 2013. The job market was also exceptionally strong that year, with an unemployment rate of just 4.5%. By contrast, 7.4% of the nation’s workforce was unemployed.

Regarding Dubuque's bond ratings, it's been fluctuating between Aa2 and Aa3 for some time. Not perfect, but still very good.

[jasperhobbs]

What isn't in the statistics is the increasing number of shots fired in the downtown area and more gangs moving in.


As far as fiscal responsibility, just look at the $400, 000+ public restroom that was built.

[Monkey1970]

A shooting would be counted as Violent Crime, the statistics are clear, Dubuque not only has a declining crime rate, but has one of the fastest declining crime rates in the US.