Rental Homes in Houston

[sortacrunchy]

Alright. DH and I looked around online a bit this weekend. I think we've settled on a house or townhouse, although we might check out one of the apartment complexes very near where he'll be working-- to confirm that's not what we want, if nothing else. We're going to focus our search(es) on Bellaire (77401), West University (77005), and Meyerland (77096). We found plenty of houses and townhouses in those areas that seem to fit what we're looking for.

Are there any particular parts of any of those areas that we should avoid due to crime, super bad traffic, or anything like that? Or are any parts of any of those particularly nice? Anything else we should be aware of when looking around there?
[MENTION=4205]alotofyarn[/MENTION], you said that you could usually get into the med center in about 15 min, unless something happened. How often would you say that you guys ended up with an hour long commute? Was it a pretty rare thing, or did it happen more than a few times a month?

[alotofyarn]

Those are all pretty nice areas. I'd avoid living directly on major roads (Main, Kirby, Holcombe, Bellaire, Braeswood, Bissonet, Beechnut, Bellfort, Hillcroft, Stella Link, Weslayan) unless you're in a gated complex, and I'd check about guest parking for townhouses - I HATE being invited over to a friend's place and there's nowhere for me to park. Check out Google Street View for any places first, just to see what the area is like.

The hour long commutes were rare - the month of March is always bad because of the rodeo, and occasionally you'll get weekday Texans games that cause problems, but otherwise it has to be a pretty major accident to stop the back roads terribly. Houston is pretty good at clearing the roads compared to some of the other places I've lived, plus the roads are giant, so there's more room to go around accidents. We lived near Bellfort and Chimney Rock, so I would take that to S Post Oak onto 610 until Main, and take that straight into the med center. On the way home I'd take Fannin to 610 to Bellfort, mostly because of the way I had to get in and out of my parking garage, and it was always easiest to turn right in and out. So I went by Reliant every day (apparently it's no longer Reliant anymore, it's NRG??). Sometimes I'd take Braeswood to Chimney Rock instead, if things looked especially bad, or I could take Fannin or Main all the way down to Bellfort.

[sortacrunchy]

How's the 77025 zip code? There are some decent looking houses for rent there; yet, I'm seeing several houses pictured with bars on the windows... What gives??

[alotofyarn]

I think in general it's OK, although the further inside the loop you are, the better. North of Braeswood should definitely be fine. I don't know much about that area outside of the loop.

[sortacrunchy]

I think in general it's OK, although the further inside the loop you are, the better. North of Braeswood should definitely be fine. I don't know much about that area outside of the loop.

Awesome, thanks! I think for our first trip out to Houston, we're going to limit ourselves to checking out places inside the loop, anyway. As of right now, there are about a dozen rentals that we're interested in that are inside 610, so that should be more than enough to keep us busy for a day.

[alotofyarn]

Good luck! It's overwhelming. We looked at a ton of houses in one day and just went with one. We pretty much did the same thing when we moved and bought our current house!

[sortacrunchy]

It is overwhelming! But the good news is that it's only for 1 year, so the stakes aren't quite so high. I'm just concerned that we might be starting our search a little too soon and will find ourselves signing a lease that starts sooner than we'd like, either to (a) get the whole ordeal over with or (b) pounce on a house that we really like. Not the end of the world, obviously, but the sooner to June that we can start a lease, the better. I guess we'll see what happens!

Thanks again for all your help, [MENTION=4205]alotofyarn[/MENTION]! I really appreciate it.