Worried about finding a place to live...

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Vydellia

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So now that I'm done panicking about passing my biochem class, I've moved on to panicking about where I'm going to live in the fall. :scared: I've never tried to find an apartment from a large distance before, so mostly I'm just looking at websites and wondering how far from campus they are. I also live in an area where rent is relatively cheap (my roomate and I rent an entire house, utilities included, for 850), so I'm concerned about what I should expect regarding rent/utilities and if I'll have enough funds to pay for that.

I'd like a roomate to help with expenses, but I come with 2 relatively obnoxious cats attached (one eats anything that isn't behind closed doors) and a chinchilla. I'm also a pretty quiet/shy person who likes alot of alone time. And I'm not sure how to go about finding a roommate, since I definitely want one who understands that vet school will be stressful. Ideally, I'd like to room with another vet student.

I'm attending OSU and I hope to move in to a place by Sept 1. Does anyone who has done this before have any advise on finding apartments/roomates from a long distance?

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Ugh, I'm currently looking for a place and am anxious as well! I hate apartment hunting. I'm trying to find a place that works for me, my boyfriend, my kitty, and my large dog. They're all friendly, but having so many animals and people in one place makes it hard to have roommates, so we're searching for cheapish places for the two of us.

Friends of mine have scheduled one or two weekends to go to wherever they're moving and have just lined up rental after rental to look at that weekend. They've done a combination of private landlords and complexes/rental properties. I've always found apartments on Craigslist, but that's in the Baltimore area - not sure about OSU. For roommates, I'd see if there's any sort of student listserv where you can get in contact with current vet/other grad level students.
 
What I did was find a bunch of places I was interested in on craigslist, made appointments all for the same day, and then drove down to Philly and looked at them all. Now I'm only 5 hours away so if you're really far from Ohio that might not be an option for you.

Another thing you could do (slightly more reputable than craigslist) is see if OSU has a housing page with rental listings. Generally a university will only let landlords post in this kind of thing if they have checked them out and approved them. There are also often pages like this for people looking for roommates - that's how I found my first apartment (5 people I had never met - turned out great). If they don't have a page like this, I'm sure they have an off-campus housing department that can give you some recommendations. Also check the classifieds of student newspapers.
 
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Contact the school and see if they have list serves for the other classes. If so, ask if you can send an email describing what you are seeking in housing that they would then distribute to the listserves.

Personally, I would consider keeping the cat that consumes things in my room (and possibly all the pets if possible...just might make it a lot easier.)

Also, ask admissions if there are areas they recommend (due to traffic flow, safety, etc.)

After that, I obtained a good map of the area around the school (one that shows all the streets.) I then used google to figure out some 'rings' around the campus that told me travel time to school. IE I marked out on several major roads where a 5 minute drive from campus would put me, which gave me a rough circle (I color code, so that was green dots on those roads.) Then I did a 10 minute circle (blue), a 15 minute circle (purple) and a 20 minute circle (pink). If there were areas I knew weren't acceptable, I encricled those with red.

That gave me a great way to figure out what places to check out. Then, I arranged ot check things out in a driving pattern that made sense for when I visited. I arranged for any information I needed before hand (pet policies, average utility cost, deposit info, etc.)

When I visited the area, I visited 20-30 locations a day. I was only 4 hours away, but time was limited.

You can also contact realtors. In many places, realtors can help locate rentals. When I moved across country, a realtor actually found me a place with a person who wanted someone to watch their house while they were gone (90%) of the time. He was a landlord of multiple properties. If you go this route, my suggestion is NOT to enter a contract for a realtor to find you a place, but rather call and ask if any rentals are listed with them or if any of their realtors know of any potential rentals. You may need to call lots of realtors for that. Sometimes there is a charge (to you or to the landlord) for the realtors if a deal is made for a rental. If you enter into a contract, you generally pay a fee (lump sum or monthly percentage of the rent).

If your doing all this from an extreme distance, ask for references. A landlord can (with permission) provide contact info for other renters so that you can evaluate the options. Also, these days googling can turn up praise and complaints (to be taken with a grain of salt.)

Good luck! We just closed on our house (purchase instead of rent) Friday...now I need to find housemates!
 
I second the warning about craigslist. I just came back from a weekend apartment-hunting trip and one of the places I was looking at was an apartment in a house listed by a private landlord. The picture of the house looked really nice: it was nicely kept up, had a yard, parking was free, and had big old shade trees on each side. Rent was only ~$485/mo plus utilities for a one bedroom. And the landlord was going to let me keep my large dog and two rabbits without a pet fee...


... and then I saw it in person. The picture in the listing was NOT the house that was for rent, it was the house IN FRONT of the house that was actually for rent. The actual house was crumbling inside and out. The steps were rotted halfway off the porch. The "one bedroom" was a 200 square foot death trap on the second floor of the house that was barely big enough to fit a twin sized mattress in. Plaster was falling off the ceiling in large chunks and the whole place just reeked. The neighborhood was beyond sketchy, too.

I'm so so so soooo glad I went to check it out instead of taking the landlord's word that it was a "great little place".
 
When you say OSU, I am assuming you mean Ohio State. Craigslist is a good resource, as well as the incoming class section on the Ohio State website - they have a housing and roommates list: http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/2693.htm.

You might also send an email to Student Affairs looking for a roommate - they are really good about forwarding those emails to current students, and you might be able to find something that way.

There are a lot of good places to live near campus, and some not so good. I would definitely recommend avoiding anything east of High Street, as that tends to be mostly undergrads. It's not an especially safe area. Grandview, Harrison West, Victorian Village, and the area of Kenny and Henderson Roads are all pretty nice.

Of course, if you DIDN'T mean Ohio State, then disregard everything I just said. :D
 
Thanks for all of your helpful replies. I did mean Ohio State :) Silly me, it never occurred to me to look at the website.

I live about 7 hours away, so it's not impossible to go see places, just time consuming. Thanks for the craigslist warnings, I'll keep that in mind.

I wish I could keep the cat in my bedroom, but that's where the chinchilla lives and chinchilla+cat= all kinds of bad.

McVillesMom- if you don't mind me asking, what's a normal rate for an apartment relatively close to campus (say, within 15 min)? I've found some places that look really nice, but I'm having a hard time judging if the rate is reasonable, since I've never lived in a city before.
 
When I traveled out to Philly from Ca I didn't have a roommate situation finalized until I got here! Yes very stressful, I do not recommend this at all...however I lucked out when I did find a roomie (on craigslist) b/c he was able to handle my crazy dog and was really nice.
If you're doing it all online, def ask for pictures (to include closets and bathrooms), sq ft of rooms, walking/driving distance to school, grocery stores..etc.
There are also a few roommate/apt finder services (some charge, some don't) can do all the hunting for you and create a list of potential places based on your needs. Read the fine print though b/c it's not cheap! Some service cost alot but on the plus side, they do all the leg work for you and I think some places guarantee they'll match you or your money back.

...just did a quick search and found these:
http://www.apartmentsincolumbus.com/
http://www.aptselector.com/columbus/index.html

:luck::luck::luck:
 
Another craigslist warning.. not going to vet school yet, but I rent and since moving into my current house (via a craigslist ad) last August, I have been watching craigslist since last August. Prices decreased a bit for the area I'm in, and just this week they're shooting back up, so summer= higher rental prices, more people move in the summer.
If you can't go look at them, try and get someone to go for you (if you know someone in the area), otherwise, go through the school or a rental company or get to school early and find one. We found a lovely, lovely house with a gorgeous backyard on craigslist... we stopped by and the house was vacant, but there was tons of dog poop in the backyard, the big tree in the picture had fallen right in front of the house and was still there, the two bedrooms were scary at best: the 'master' bedroom was built and adorned for a 4yr old (kid colors, wall paper, and desk), and the other bedroom had a HUGE hole in the ceiling.
We found a nice place (for the most part), but it took over 4 months of looking.
So try and go through legit people or go look for yourself if you have the capability.
 
Hey There,

Welcome to The Ohio State family!! I am a current first year and I did the same thing about finding an apartment from out of state. I live with my SO, so we looked at a bunch of apartments and found ones that we liked and then just came out for a weekend and saw like 9-10 places, and signed a lease that weekend.

What we did, and I recommend, is make your wish list of what the apartment place MUST have. Ours was, had to be under $900 for a two bedroom, like to have two baths, must allow bigger dogs (over 50 lbs), must have laundry on site, and must have a dishwasher. Then when we looked online those places that had all those criteria are the ones we visited.

I ended up at Runaway Bay Apartments. They are really awesome, and my rent is cheaper than when I lived in a one bedroom. I will say that I know their one bedrooms here are kinda pricey, but their two bedrooms are very reasonable. It is a great place to live, and EVERYONE has animals. Plus it takes me just about 15 min. to get to class, even with traffic.

I agree about staying west of High Street. I personally would stay west of the river entirely, and I know a lot of vet students also live up on Kenny in an apartment complex whose name escapes me.

Also, join the facebook group for your class, lots of people in my class are looking for roomates. I have at least one friend who is buying a house and is looking for another roomate, and I met a classmate of yours who is also looking for another roomate. That may be easier for you, and its only one year.

Anyway I hope this helps!!
 
I'm in the same position right now except looking for a place out in grafton area for Tufts. I'm hoping to get in contact with someone on the vet school listserv at the school (it's in the owrks for me, we'll see what shows up)... and hoping to find something that way. I've been looking online, but everything i seem to find isn't that great and not in the nicest of areas, so i'm hesitant about signing without seeing... ?I know tufts has a system of postings for roommates/renting/etc. and it opens in june, so until i see that i'm not really sure what i'll be doing, but i'm not yet stressing about it... i really want to have a place to live when i get there, but am thinking it might be a better bet to go a week early and look for a place when i move up there...
 
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