Please help a UW transfer student choose a place to live (Madison: sublease, sublet)

[HondaCivet]

Hello. I just found this forum and I have been pleasantly surprised with the quality of posting, so I decided that I'd ask for your expert opinions.

I have applied to transfer from UW-Platteville to UW-Madison this spring semester. I haven't been admitted yet but I want to make sure I am prepared in case it happens. I've lived an hour away from Madison my whole life and have visited a lot, so I am sort of familiar with the city in general but don't have an intimate understanding of all the different areas of the city and how they differ. I will be a mechanical engineering student, so I'll be around the engineering buildings most of the time (near Union South and Camp Randall Stadium). Since I know that parking on or near campus is a nightmare, I plan on taking the bus to campus and maybe biking when there's no snow. While I am a student, I'm not really into the party scene and would prefer to live somewhere away from the typical rowdy Madison student. However, some local color and culture is definitely good. From what I've read on the forums, I think I'd prefer a more east side-like character (less suburban, more progressive). It also needs to be somewhere that has rentals, of course. Lower cost is important although I plan on living with roommates to help keep costs down. I will have a car but I want to use it as little as possible, so I'll need somewhere with parking.

Whew, sorry, that's kind of a lot . . . anyone have any suggestions? Also, when and where should I start looking? I'll probably move in at the beginning of January.

[gallon]

HC, hope you get accepted. The typical UW engineering student would be looking for a roommate situation, say along Kendall avenue to the west of campus, or say along Jefferson street to the southwest. Possibly down in the Vilas area, look at Drake street for example. These tend to be the more serious student neighborhoods. The more rowdy behavior occurs closer in, but it can happen anywhere.

Bicycling is year round, weather is a factor of course.
From the near east side it would be a convenient bus hop over to the west end of campus.

For actual housing, start studying the listings in Craigslist-Madison. Good luck!

[7G9C4J2]

Gallon's suggestions are excellent ones; as much as I love the funky east-side vibe, I think you'd be looking at a longer bike ride/bus commute than you'd prefer, particularly in winter, if you went for the Willy Street area. The Monroe Street area and the University Heights area are both good places to look, where you'd be less likely to encounter typical hard-partying undergrads.

You'll find that a goodly number of students start looking for second semester sublet arrangements by about late October or early November. At this point, a week before school even starts, I highly doubt that any of them have thought that far ahead, or at least they never did when I worked for a campus-area landlord, but by about halfway through the fall semester, those that are leaving in December (graduating, transferring, semester abroad, whatever) will start looking for a way to minimize their rental expenses for the remainder of the lease.

One option that you might also try is to contact some of the campus-area landlords for sublease referrals. The landlord I used to work for kept lists of tenants who wanted to find a sublessee, and would refer callers to the tenants to facilitate the process. I suspect that not all landlords do that, of course, but it might be worth a call or two.

And I would suggest that you try the classifieds in both the Isthmus and in the Wisconsin State Journal for rentals, too. You'll find links to both in the thread called "A variety of useful links in the Madison area". Check into the Tenant Resource Center while you're there, too, as well as the link to the MG&E average utility cost webpage.

Best of luck to you in both the transfer and in finding a good spot to live!

[HondaCivet]

Yeah, you are right that living closer to campus would be good, it's just that sometimes people describe the student areas of Madison as being a bit rough and noisy so I was wondering if it was best to avoid them. It sounds like there are some good areas too though, at least.