Rental Homes in Houston

[sortacrunchy]

Anyone have any suggestions/advice on finding a rental home in Houston, TX? I know NOTHING about this city. We'll be there this coming academic year while DH completes a fellowship in the medical center area. Some of his colleagues have suggested looking in the area of Rice University or Hermann Park. DH is looking for something close to the office, maybe a 15 min drive. I understand traffic gets pretty bad, so the closer he is to work, the better. For my part, it would be awesome if the kids and I had a walk or easy drive to parks/greenspaces or museums. And of course a family-friendly and safe neighborhood is a must. We're going to be keeping our current home and going back and forth, so we don't need a huge place in Houston. We're thinking on the order of 1000-1500 sqft, either 2 or 3 bedrooms. Our target rent is between $1500-$2200/mo, and it's got to be dog friendly. We're looking for a house or townhouse but would also consider an apartment if it had walk-out access to a small yard or patio- I really don't want to be walking the dog and kids up and down floors multiple times a day to let the pooch do her thing outside. :-/

Anyone know the area well? Have any recommendations for areas to search or (better yet) specific units/complexes to check out? We'll prob be heading out there for a weekend home search in the next 2-3 weeks or so.

[medpedspouse]

Near the park (museum district) and Rice (near WestU/Southgate) will be pretty pricey. Most in training live either outside the loop or in what we called Condoville...Holly Hall, ElPaseo, Almeda, Old Spanish Trail, Cambridge streets. They are all east of Reliant/Dome area. However, these are not houses. We lived in a townhouse and had enough of a grass patch for our dogs. If condos/townhouses are ok with you, PM me and I will send you some landlord contacts. For your price range, you can get some really nice places and close to the med center. Is your DH going to be with the UT system or Baylor? If UT, they have housing that is nice and convenient...will save him from having to pay for parking if he can take the shuttle.

[poky]

I know nothing about Houston, so I can't help with that, but being on the search for a house to rent myself, long distance, I just wanted to make sure that you're checking the big ones:

zillow.com
trulia.com
padmapper.com
craigslist.com
homes.com
hotpads.com
homecircle.com
realtor.com
I know someone who works for these people (he programs the website, and just moved there, so he wouldn't be much help, but that's why I know about this site):
http://www.houstonrentalapartment.com/properties

My problem is too little stock available in the area we really want to be in (we're moving to a smallish town, and we want about 2000 square feet), so when I check all of these, I typically find maybe 2-3 in my location and size range, but I imagine your problem might be too many options? In which case, never mind.

[sortacrunchy]

Thanks for the info! We do want to be as close to the med center as we reasonably can.

As far as UT or Baylor, I have no idea! LOL I'm going to have to ask him about that, though.

[poky]

Is his office going to be at/near Rice? That last link I posted has 15 apartments/condos listed that are more than 1000 square feet and less than $1500/month in the "rice university area" (however they define that)...

[SoonerTexan]

We were told to look in Westwood or another neighborhood (that I cannot recall the name of) when we were considering Houston for residency. We drove through the areas and they were nice enough. You should be able to find something in your price range there.

I'm not sure how I feel about the condo areas right around the med center. My inlaws live there and we drove on Holly Hall to see where my husband lived with his parents back when my FIL did fellowship--my MIL and I were shocked at how rough it seemed to have gotten. I mean, some areas were nice, but they were $$$$

That's why I hate Houston. It isn't cheap if you need to get downtown within 30 min. The nice areas north and west are SO far away. Pearland is supposed to be good, but is further than you would probably like.

I have heard of people finding gems in the city, but I wouldn't know where to look. Hopefully [MENTION=4205]alotofyarn[/MENTION] will chime in.

[alotofyarn]

Yes!! Hubby and I lived there for 3 years while he was in med school (he rented a condo on his own the first year while I was finishing up grad school, then I moved down with him). We rented a house in Westbury/Meyerland for $1400/month for a 3bed/2bath 1700 sqft house with a 2 car garage on an 8500 sqft lot. We could usually get into the med center in about 15 minutes, but it totally depended on traffic and could take up to an hour if something major happened (though this is pretty much the case in any part of town). You may be able to find something in the West U/Rice Village area in your price range, but they tend to be older and in need of some work, or condos. You might also be able to find something in Bellaire, which is maybe slightly closer in. I don't think you'll find a house near Hermann Park, only condos, but I could be wrong about that. I didn't care much for the condoville area - this is where hubby lived his first year, and I honestly never felt that safe when I was on my own visiting, even in a gated complex.

We had a realtor help us out in our search - they end up getting half of the security deposit as commission. We did our hunting online though at first, through Trulia and Zillow, I think.

If you're going with an apartment/condo, look for anything near Braeswood and Kirby - I had a lot of friends who lived in that area and really liked it. I know that the Brompton Ct apartments have some with fenced in patio areas that were decent.

Feel free to send me a message or tag me in here if you have questions about any specific places or areas.

[sortacrunchy]

Thanks, everyone for such great advice. I have lots of leads to start following up on! I'm sure I'll have some more questions once I start taking a look at the neighborhoods and complexes you guys mentioned.

Someone DH knows mentioned the townhomes in the Maroneal Complex. Anyone know anything about these?

Something I feel like I'm getting from your posts is that perhaps the nicer areas are to the north and west of Main St. Is that about right? Anyone else have an opinion on Condoville? Also, does the area right around Rice tend to be nice? I'm picturing living next to a frat house ala that Seth Rogan movie Neighbors! LOL

[medpedspouse]

Oh no. The area around Rice is super niiiiice as in million dollar nice.
Don't know that complex. Just sent you a PM. My friend still lives in condoville. Has for decades. She loves the convenience to everything. I never felt unsafe but was always on guard just like I would at any other big city. Yes, I heard of break ins but never in our complex. Then again, we have never had a window in our car smashed in until we were living in a nice neighborhood in a small town.

[SoonerTexan]

Westbury/Meyerland

That was the other area

[medpedspouse]

Bear in mind that Meyerland is outside the loop. Traffic sucks all over Houston but if you are already insude the loop, you've won half the commute battle.

Another thing to keep in mind is flooding. Houston floods easily. Ask questions about roads around where you are looking.

[alotofyarn]

Someone DH knows mentioned the townhomes in the Maroneal Complex. Anyone know anything about these?

Hubby had a classmate who lived there I think - I don't know much about it, but he seemed like a normal guy, so I assume it was nice.

Something I feel like I'm getting from your posts is that perhaps the nicer areas are to the north and west of Main St. Is that about right? Anyone else have an opinion on Condoville? Also, does the area right around Rice tend to be nice? I'm picturing living next to a frat house ala that Seth Rogan movie Neighbors! LOL

Yes, NW of Main is generally nice, although there are some older homes in there that are not super nice - we looked at several. The area around Rice is very nice - million dollar homes and up. The students live on campus, I believe. You will run into them at the restaurants nearby though, but you'll also run into med/grad/professional students.

Bear in mind that Meyerland is outside the loop. Traffic sucks all over Houston but if you are already insude the loop, you've won half the commute battle.

Another thing to keep in mind is flooding. Houston floods easily. Ask questions about roads around where you are looking.

Meyerland is outside the loop, but you don't have to get on 610 to get there, and I found that helpful, although unless something major had happened, it was easier to get right on and off than to take the back roads usually. I think flooding can be a concern near Braes bayou, but I wouldn't be as concerned about it for a short term rental. I don't remember any major problems in my 3 years there, but we were fortunate enough to miss major hurricanes those years.

[sortacrunchy]

OK. So I just spent the last couple hours looking at some of the areas you guys mentioned. It seems that I have lots of options in our price range, maybe too many options!

Now that I think about it, I'm having a hard time deciding what type of rental is best for us. Help me out?

House: Upside is that we have a yard and aren't sharing walls with neighbors. Downside is the limited availability and higher price tag. Also, we'd have the lawn maintenance. We already have plenty of landscaping to care for already; I don't necessarily want to have *2* whole yards to deal with.

Townhouse: Seems like a nice compromise between a house and apartment. I'm a worrier though. I don't love the idea of sleeping on the 3rd floor of a multifamily unit in the event of a fire. I'm worried about not being able to safely evacuate. **Is this a totally stupid concern? Maybe I should just limit myself to considering units with sprinklers or something?**

Apartment: I think we could totally rock an apartment for a year *if* we have a ground floor unit with some sort of grassy area for the dog. I'm not so worried about the kids; they have a nice yard at our home here to play in, and I think we could embrace the urban living lifestyle and walk to the park every day. (Sounds kinda fun, actually. Maybe. LOL Anyway, it's only for a year.) The downside is the shared walls/noise issues, plus I hate to pay for a bunch of amenities that we'll likely never use. (Sauna, clubhouse, business center? Nah. DH *might* use a gym, not sure.) Major upside for an apartment is that there seems to be so.many.apartments in and around the med center, so we can really be choosy.

So, what the heck kind of place am I looking for?? Help me figure it out; I'm on rental home info overload right now! LOL

Also, when should we start seriously looking for a rental? We want to move in around June 15. I don't want to start looking too soon and run into issues with landlords wanting tenants sooner. OTOH, I'm afraid there might be a bit of a rush on units once all the other trainees get matched and start their own searches, especially given how huge the Houston med center is.

Ugh. It's been a long time since we needed to rent, and I'm not looking forward to getting back into that game. We own a perfectly nice house here; I so wish DH could commute from here for fellowship! Oh, and did I mention that after living in attending-land for a few years, I am so not looking forward to DH's going back into training?!

[alotofyarn]

I was over sharing walls and parking when we decided on a house, plus we knew we'd be there for 3 years. I also hate stairs, and I didn't even have a kid at the time. We hired someone to do our lawn for $30/week, although the weekly visits aren't necessary during the winter - that was like once a month.

We started looking in June, I think, and moved in in August, maybe? I'd start looking now, and you can always ask if you can start the lease later. I'm paranoid though and would rather pay an extra month of rent than stress out about not finding a place in time. The house rentals move quickly.

[alotofyarn]

Duh, I can't believe I forgot this - I knew there was a site we used mostly for our search, and it wasn't the big ones. [MENTION=4803]sortacrunchy[/MENTION] - checkout har.com! That's where we did all of our hunting.