If you can find someone else to live with, I highly recommend looking for a house to rent. My best friends live in a 3BR house in Crestline that rents for 900 a month. Even after utilities, I think each person still only pays about 400. If you look at this area on a map, you'll think it's too far away from UAB. However, Montclair is one of the few roads in Birmingham that I actually don't mind driving--you can get from the far end of Crestline to Southside/UAB in about 6-7 minutes in the morning.
I'm not a B'ham native (Huntsvillain here), but I completely agree with the idea of a house over an apartment. My wife and I own a couple of houses in HSV that we rent and it really does work out well for our renters. Here in HSV, you can get a 3 bedroom 1 bath in a quiet neighborhood 5 minutes from the Hospital for about $750/mo. Probably less if you look around. Figure utilities at $250/mo for your WORST month (not including cable and internet-- $15/mo for Bellsouth DSL-Lite). That puts you at $1000/mo cold/hot months and probably $900/mo milder months. There you'd be paying between $300 and $335/mo with two roommates.
$350/mo over 4 yrs with no interest considered = $16,800 to pay back
$500/mo = $24,000
$750/mo = $36,000
$1000/mo = $48,000
Couple of tips from a landlord:
- Check-out the neighborhood. Seriously. Drive around it at night, especially a Friday or Saturday night before you sign a contract. Look for rolling meth labs, previously exploded rolling meth labs, backyards with an excessive number of pitbulls (n>0), metal bars on the window, metal bars peeled back from the windows of a home like the petals of flower because of last night's kitchen meth lab explosion, and 1200 sq ft homes with 468 fraternity brothers pouring out of the windows and onto the three couches they keep in their front yard.
- Talk with your potential neighbors. They won't be upset with you for stopping by and saying, "Hey, I'm XXXX and I'm a medical student. I'm thinking about renting this house next door, could I get you to tell me about the neighborhood?" This can yield mountains of good info. It doesn't hurt to ask, "Can you hear the freaking train from your bedroom at oh-dark-thirty in the morning?"
- Ask to see utility bills. If they give you bills for March and April, figure 50-75% higher electric for August and January. If April's electric bill was $6,724 somebody was growing pot in the utility room. The police will be along shortly to kick in your door and shoot your poodle.
- If you're reasonably handy, ask to check-out the crawlspace. (Or, just go do it. You're considering throwing a lot of money at this rental so you really need to know what you can.) Look, smell, and feel for leaky pipes, bad odors, and drafts from disconnected ductwork. These can add up to expensive utility bills and comfort issues. Dead rats in the crawlspace indicate a previous unsanitary renter. Seriously. If you see anything like that, check the house over carefully for signs of mice, rats, and bugs.
- Read your contract. Follow it. Seriously. Nothing ticks me off worse than clearly stating that we don't allow smoking/pets/whatever, then having the lessee read the contract and sign it, and then come to find out in the middle of their lease that they have a gigantic bloodhound living in the house. Even worse when that bloodhound turns out to be a chain-smoker, but I digress. Doing stupid stuff like that will quickly lose your deposit. And no, that $750 deposit will NOT fully cover the carpet and paint I have to replace.
- Stay in contact with your management agency and/or landlord, especially on maintenance issues. If something begins to fail, works improperly, or breaks, tell them immediately! When a problem is left to sit for half of the lease-period it can become difficult to determine whether the renter may have contributed to or caused the problem. It is much easier to trust someone who says, "The door started sticking today" than the renter who moves out only to leave me with a sticking door with boot-prints all over it from somebody kicking it to make it unstick. Did that renter cause the problem? They certainly didn't tell me about it, and kicking the door didn't help. It would have taken less than an hour for me to fix, and that would have prevented the $600 replacement of a bent metal exterior door and frame.
Wow. This post somehow just became war and peace.
😱 Sorry. </rant>
