Waitress and teacher thinking about moving to Nola (New Orleans, Baton Rouge: apartments, for rent)

[Nikkiv1981]

My boyfriend and I are from pittsburgh and just visited New Orleans for the first time and fell in love with the city. He's a teacher/musician and I'm a server who has worked in both fine dining and tended bar at nice places and dive bars. Our love of the music, food, and culture made us consider moving for the first time. We stayed in the quarter and with research quickly found out its way out of our price range. So we would like to know what neighborhoods would be reasonable for people like us? What's the job market like? Pro's and cons? Any advice is good advice. Thanks for your time!

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

This should give you some idea:
<GNOCDC> Prevalent Wages and Affordable Rent

Look at the right-hand column for suggested rents by occupation.

[rburnett]

The Marigny/Bywater is more hipster, artists, bohemian, LGBT, etc. Uptown and Mid-City are more diverse with pockets of posh yuppi-ness as well as crusty areas.

Mid City is central to everything, so you might want to look there first until you figure out where you both will be working and get a better feel for the city. Most of the hospitality jobs will be downtown, which you can easily access by bike or streetcar if you want.

[Nikkiv1981]

Thank you for the response. Not really getting as much feedback as I'd hoped so every bit of advice helps. I'm looking into the areas you've mentioned. But I would also like to know honestly, is it worth the move? I know that no city is perfect but I would hope that all the great things New Orleans has to offer outweighs the bad.your thoughts?

[Neworleansisprettygood]

A lot of people have moved here recently. Most love it.

[J0090]

Midcity is a good suggestion, and you could live comfortably with the profesions you've listed. I've no real idea what the job market is like for teachers, but in the service industry it should be easy enough to find something.

If you like New Orleans from visiting, it will probably grow on you once you live there. Then it will be similar to a child...sometimes it will throw up in your face, but you still love it anyway. I lived there for 5 years, and once had my wallet stolen from my purse, and once my car was hit while parked on the street (no note -_-), but that was the worst of it. If you're worried about crime, it's really not much worse than any major city. Sometimes life moves a bit slower, and sometimes public agencies are even less efficient than the norm. Public transit can be excessively unreliable. But, really, I'd be hard pressed to say that any of these things outweigh the immeasurable pleasure of living in New Orleans. I'd move back there in a heartbeat if my career allowed it, so if you love it there go for it. The winters sure beat what you get in Pittsburgh.

[annie_himself]

You will probably love it. I should be moving just cross the canal in a couple months.

[zbellino]

Originally Posted by Nikkiv1981

My boyfriend and I are from pittsburgh and just visited New Orleans for the first time and fell in love with the city. He's a teacher/musician and I'm a server who has worked in both fine dining and tended bar at nice places and dive bars. Our love of the music, food, and culture made us consider moving for the first time. We stayed in the quarter and with research quickly found out its way out of our price range. So we would like to know what neighborhoods would be reasonable for people like us? What's the job market like? Pro's and cons? Any advice is good advice. Thanks for your time!

Job Market:

If you are a waitress, you'll be fine once tourist season starts. It's pretty rough outside of that, but find a job where the owners are good and won't fire you or slash your hours over the hot summer months when tourism slows to a trickle and the few students the city has are gone, and you have what many here consider a 'good' job.

Teaching, which is what I do, well did until recently, not so much. Options for careers like that are not very good at all in New Orleans or Louisiana -- it is a hair brighter in Baton Rouge if he can stomach the commute. I've been here four years and the city is endearing, but I'm probably on my way out soon. Most of the people that I know that come here to learn to teach or teach leave. I know a couple folks who kind of changed careers ... one teacher who became a pedi-cab cyclist, and another who found gigs doing service and back bar and pick-up extra work (which I've also been forced to do when the summer rolls around).

Music ... it depends on your BF's aspirations. There is a lot of small work for musicians in New Orleans, but it's also not a place where you are going to get national exposure. My musician friends who aren't dire-hard NOLA-for-lifers are typically aspirational to get out and get to somewhere like Austin or New York.

So a negative for the job market -- unless you do service.

There are good affordable neighborhoods. The FQ is really the worst of both worlds though. NOLA is great because if you live *outside* the FQ the cost of living is really low. Things young people like are cheap (win/cigs) and food at supermarkets (as long as it isn't specialty items) is cheap too. But you really miss that in the FQ. You can find a one bedroom for two uptown in a good really safe area for about 750 (low, low) to 1100 (if you want something really nice). Also ... be wary, all cities do this in some ways, but it's a touch more prevalent here. A lot of 2 bed apts are listed incorrectly/unscrupulously. They are 'shotguns' (if you don't know it look it up) and they basically call what would have been the dining area the 2nd bedroom. You forget about it, treat it as normal after a while after you've been in the market, but it's not a great setup at all for roommates or privacy, so it's best to really think of those places as 1 bed apartments with a really cool dining area/extra den.

One really upcoming area where I live now is the Freret St area of uptown. It's a bit removed from the streetcar, but most of the city is. It's not as pretty as some of the other areas, but there are a bunch of really cool things to do, and you can still find that good NOLA rent compared to the eastern seaboard.

Ha ha, right now I'm in an 850 a month shotgun from about 1920. It's a bit rundown and the kitchen/bathroom are painfully out of date (haha, rusted porcelain kitchen sink with one faucet for cold and another for hot, lol) but it's massive, real pretty in it's own New Orleanian dilapidated way, and it has a front porch (useless in the summer sun though) and back covered porch with a tiny little green space. If I were back home this would be a bit better kept .... it would also cost $2200-2800 a month, easy, lol.

I've also lived in the Irish Channel, which is losing it's status as a cheap rent area, but is pretty cheap still if you can find a rental. It's next to a pretty sketchy area and has some crime to it as well, but it's basically good people ... and a lot of 'service' industry folks too.

The Bywater area is ok, the rent is really climbing there. IF you don't own a car, you can tend to feel pretty cut off, but it's got lots of funky stuff to do, and is a lot safer than it used to be. The hipster factor can be a bit much ... but that's usually a good sign for a neighborhood.

You can also find decent rent in the Carrolton/Leonidas area. The closer you get to the river the sketchier and cheaper it gets, but it's a decent area I'd love to try.

Mid-City has less stuff to do, but what is there is pretty cool (12 Mile Limit, Finn's, Pal's if you count that) it's got it's bad streets but on the whole is a cool residential area. The people that live there that I know swear by it!

Place to avoid if you are looking for rent deals? FQ, Marigny, Garden District, the LGD where it's nice (though the parts that are rough have some cool cheap rent too), the Audubon area is a no go, you'll be priced out unless you get lucky.

It's not that you can't get good stuff there, it's that you might have to accept something really small, or really beat up, or pony up more cash.

So places to look: Freret, Carrolton/RiverBend/Leonidas, Bywater, Irish Channel, Uptown by Napoleon close to Tchoup too. I don't know Gentilly enough, but some people live there and are fine, others not so much. I've seen great rent in the lower part of Esplanade Ridge, and a lot of it looks kind of crime ridden, but it's difficult to tell in this city if an area is just a little depressed or actually is dangerous. Oh, and Bayou St John too, it has some deal in it, though it's still in this recovery process and has some bad streets.

Places can be pricey: FQ, Marigny, Garden District, the LGD, Audubon/Tulane.

Places to avoid in general: Central City (it's a misery engine), Hollygrove, St Thomas area, Gravier area, Treme up by Gravier, anything in NOLA East.

Hope this helps! Enjoy your time in NOLA if you make the move. It is a truly unique city for the South, and can be buckets of fun if you know the places to go and have fun.

[Nikkiv1981]

Thank you so much for your reply! We plan on visiting again this year so I can get a better look at all the areas you suggested. The teaching thing is a little disheartening. My boyfriend was considering looking into administrative work in the school district. He normally does elementary school Ed. I think in the end were both ready for a change. Crime Is everywhere so I can deal with that to an extent. Don't want it on my doorstep lol. As far as music my boyfriend plays the bass, upright bass, guitar, congas, and several other Percussion instruments. Not sure if he's looking to play down there, even though it would be very cool if he could! We just love the fact that there's something to do every night there all year round, and I'm so over this bipolar weather in pittsburgh. Aside from music, what else do people do for fun?