Can I pull off $1200/mo rental and not be in the ghetto? Tampa/Clearwater/St. Pete area??? (house, bill)

[Tim Tim Tim]

a shack

[NYC_BOS]

After living in Boston and NYC for 17 years, I do not want to listen to my neighbor above or below me cough. It would be nice to find a modern well built apartment complex where the college kids aren't going. In response to buying a place, I have been prequal for a mortgage, however as a first time home buyer, I would like to do a bit mnore research on the area and market before I buy. I think renting for a year would be prudent.

[GoRays813]

Originally Posted by NYC_BOS

After living in Boston and NYC for 17 years, I do not want to listen to my neighbor above or below me cough. It would be nice to find a modern well built apartment complex where the college kids aren't going. In response to buying a place, I have been prequal for a mortgage, however as a first time home buyer, I would like to do a bit mnore research on the area and market before I buy. I think renting for a year would be prudent.

Harbor Island should keep you below your budget while providing a modern apartment complex. There are some college kids there but the steeper rental price causes most of them to search elsewhere. Plenty of professionals live there as well.

[crazynip]

Originally Posted by NYC_BOS

After living in Boston and NYC for 17 years, I do not want to listen to my neighbor above or below me cough. It would be nice to find a modern well built apartment complex where the college kids aren't going. In response to buying a place, I have been prequal for a mortgage, however as a first time home buyer, I would like to do a bit mnore research on the area and market before I buy. I think renting for a year would be prudent.

Apartments are built cheap as hell everywhere. Be it Tampa, Bawston, Neu Yawk, or Peoria, IL.

Especially if you have a low budget.

[Tim Tim Tim]

yeah, any apartment is going to suck ass for noise. Even the expensive ones.

[Keeper]

Originally Posted by crazynip

You sure about that? I dont know what is available at that price range in the 2br/2b range.

Yes, I am sure.. I know someone who lives in one, plus if you do search you can find them too

[Disland]

Many options. For a year, I'd suggest channelside or harbor Island. it is hone to the National Republican Nominating Convention in Mid august 2012. I'm a D. The television shots will look like a water paradise. into the 1980s it was little but abandoned 1920s one story wooden warehouses on Tampa Bay . You can walk to every office and museum in the downtown area. there are 50 great restaurants within 2 miles. The historic University of Tampa campus , the end of the railroad destination hotel. Bayshore blvd has just one stop light headed south and none headed north as you see 6 miles of unbroken Tampa Bay vistas. 3 miles further south you can play golf along the bay with admission for lessons or military ID. This is the original 'one a day in Tampa Bay' WWII air base. it is now the southern end of the Pensacola air station and Egland AFB where we have enormous Air shows and some how 30 miles out in the Gulf fighter jets go supersonic close enough by to throw rocks at. The Sebring 24 Hour races are in the middle of the state and the Avon Park bombing and artillery range goes north from there. East of Tampa, just 10 minutes from channel side harbor island is the reason Tampa billionaires took land for less tha 35 cents an acre and sold for 5 to 8 thousand and acre in the blink of an eye when a high school kid shooting squirels tripped over high grade phosphate on the surface 100 miles further south than the mines shipping through St John's River . Years of 'mid-night borings/prospecting' and a sham news paper reporter covering the news while discovering which landowners might sell and at what price kept the find secret. Now it is the largest developed phosphate discovery in the world and the essential ingredient on fertilizer. it is the collections of hundreds of millions of years of bony land and water dinasours deposited when the earth was hot, the seas rose, Florida was a shallow sea with the Florida Ridge! some peaks are 300 feet above sea level !!!. of course hurricane season is May to October and even unnamed low pressure, if it stalls will pull the bay dry and the slam it full. That water, even on a normal high tide if the wind is steady from the south has caused flooding 20 feet above the highest high tides. It is fun 9 times out of 10. but in my 60 years of living within a mile of here there have been just 2 evacuations, both in 2005 and on both occassions the weather here was beautiful and instead the hurricanes went either north or south of the bay and caused heavy winds and rains inland where evacuation hotels areound Disney handle things. it had been so long in that area without high winds that it took 9 nonths of around the clock emergency crews to restore power and water. The point is this if you check a news paper or local news show you will know for a week ahead of time to start watching daily, and then twice a day. Andrew and Katrina hwere predicted for 10 days and both were down to catogry 2 of a pontential 5. both exploded to 5s! and thank heavens came ashore as 4s. So keep your head. do not listen to the fear mongers. just head to higher ground. it is impossible to pile up more than 30 feet of water, florida is too flat. as it rises toward 20 feet it is so far away from the gulf or bay that the storn surge spreads out in 360 degrees. the rain and wind show up on tv, but they will just start twisters, cyclones, water spouts anf those things last only seconds or minutes they are not like tornado alley that starts north of the Gulf. the surge rarely wrecks more than 20 miles of coastline on the gulf. the worst recorded flooding in tampa spead 6 miles from the mouth of the Hillsborough River. in 1965 a bu pass canal was dug so as for the river to be diverted. It is ready to go, but not since Hurricane Donna in 1960 has the river shown any concern and has never had the bt pass opened.

Sharks also live here an every once in a long while schools of hundreds get screwed up in mating and swim within 200 feet of shore. that is lots farther out than swimmers go. surfers in the atlantic get badly bit every few years. I do not check but the only fatal attack within 40 miles occurred when a bull shark got lost and aparently unable to leave and never expected in a canal. a 60 year old man who daily did cannon ball jumps off his dock smashed the 10 foot shark and was killed while neighbors watched!

Alligators were hunted to near ectension and I was glad. They are now back. These things will hold their breath for 45 minutes in water so shallow they could stand up. they ambush dogs mostly and then the police will relocate them. They can take down a horse or cow, people are no problem and unlike sharks will not let go as they drag and drown victims. they store drowned prey for weeks to let it decay before eating. and the run on land at 35 miles per hour, faster than most cars drive. you cannot out run them. I am uneasy to say the least. But I also know that thousand of enotmous wilf gatorss, ofter 20 to 30 feet swim at Wakula Springs among the top 10 most favorite place of mine on earth. I have swim there since I was 2. the spring is among the largest in the world and the river flows out 100 yards away. A nature ride down the river points out hundreds of gator nests and clearly large gator swim up onto the spring and foot prints on the beach can freak me out. There is no attempt to keep the thousands of gators and hundred of swimmers apart except swimming is paused when they start scarring folks. out of 20 million resident and visitors it is rare for a gator to kill a human. I recall one east of Lake Okeechobee in 1986,

Lightning is a concern that I habe yaken too lightly. It was frightening as a child. we were told it was 'bowling' and tought to count the seconds from the flash to the kaboom. I have enjoyed them since i was 5. Horse barns and golfers were targets byt lightning rods do work. even so few ever survoce. the heat alone is hotter than the sun! the strike will dig a crater two feet across. we would seek shelter and no one i know has died since 1960, yet every horse in a local barn wearing metal shoes died in 1998.

What I learned in 2000 is that lightning can strike 20 miles from the source. the storm can be almost over the horizon and it can blast in and kill people in high rise condos on clears still after noons. Yet less than one out of 20 million die each year.

[crazynip]

Originally Posted by Disland

Many options. For a year, I'd suggest channelside or harbor Island... there are 50 great restaurants within 2 miles.

What? LoL!!!

50? I work downtown and think your number is way off... WAY OFF. Also quite a lot of restaurants downtown are only open for Breakfast and Lunch.

[alphacoyle]

Originally Posted by rezfreak

uh yeah, i rent a 2k sq foot house for 1300 a month (in brandon), you'll do fine. Brandon has some nice houses that you could rent for a good price, if you're interested, I can PM you my realtor's info, they rent a lot of houses. The house we moved into had all new Ac, windows, etc, so our heating/cooling bill is always under 120 (even in the prime of summer). I loooove my house, i wish i could keep it!

Your ac bill is under $120 for a 2000 sq ft house?? What temp do you keep it, do you keep the curtains shut, ac the whole house etc? That's pretty incredible. I'd figured about $100 per 500sq ft.

[crazynip]

Originally Posted by alphacoyle

Your ac bill is under $120 for a 2000 sq ft house?? What temp do you keep it, do you keep the curtains shut, ac the whole house etc? That's pretty incredible. I'd figured about $100 per 500sq ft.

My numbers are similar. I have a 2 story house though, and usually do not have the upstairs unit on.