Advice: Finding a House Rental

Spartan5

Hi! My FI is starting at Vanderbilt as a new RN in January and we're looking for a house to rent. Currently, we live in Michigan. I am so sick of Craigslist I thought I'd see if you nesties knew of anything. (also, we would prefer a fenced in yard because we have 2 dogs).

Thank you so much for any help you can give, this is tough looking for a place to rent from out of State!

theUptown_Girl

Hmmm... I was going to suggest Craigslist!  I found my apartment (right next to Vandy) in a round about way involving Craigslist.  You see I was scoping out an apartment I saw on there, when I came upon one that was completely unlisted in any paper or internet.  All the landlord does is put a sign in the yard, and somehow has always ended up with good tenants!

I will say, I lived in the very north end of the county, Goodlettsville, for about a year.  I was still finishing my senior year of college in Bowling Green, KY (1 hour north of Nashville), but I already landed a great job.  While Goodlettsville wasn't for me, I liked having time to learn more about all the different areas of Nashville.  So I knew what areas I liked and didn't like, and what the plusses and minuses of each area was.

Have you tried hotpads.com? 

dharmabunny

UG's got a good point about the rentals around the Vandy/Sylvan park area.  Landlords don't need to post on craigslist.  A sign on the lawn tends to get the place snapped up just before the beginnings of each semester.  As annoying as this sounds, is there any way you can just take a 3-4 day trip to Nashville and be ready to sign a lease on the spot? 

You may want to see if your FI can talk to the individual or office that deals with student affairs within the nursing school.  I know when I was in grad school the student coordinator (not nursing, though) had a list of places that actually preferred renting to grad students/professional students, and did not really publish their vacancy anywhere else.

Whether in the area or further out, there are plenty of rental homes around almost all areas.  It's not like the economy scooted by unnoticed here either.
 

Spartan5

Thanks Girls! We're actually planning on coming down New Years Day for that whole weekend to secure a place so it's all wrapped up. I was thinking we could just drive around the neighborhoods we were interested in look for For Rent signs originally but I was worried about not having enough time. I'm sure we can always extend or stay a bit. Do you have any neighborhood suggestions?

 Thank you so much for your help!

theUptown_Girl

kmays & her husband rented a house in the 12th South area (near Belmont & Vandy), when her husband was in his residency.

There's also some houses for rent along Natchez Trace in the Hillsboro/West End Area.

Also, in between Centennial Park and 440 parkway there are condos and some housees.

And the Sylvan Park area, there are some new houses.  This area has a mixture of nice houses, and not really nice houses, but it's worth looking definitely.

And there's tons of condos in the Gulch.

(I hope all these links work...)  Those are what I know of if you wanted to stay pretty close to the hospital.

Spartan5

The links worked, thank you SO much! I checked out the hotpads website that was pretty neat. It'll be SO nice to get this taken care of so we can focus on the move!

ad52905

Spartan5:

The links worked, thank you SO much! I checked out the hotpads website that was pretty neat. It'll be SO nice to get this taken care of so we can focus on the move!

Vanderbilt also has an off campus referral service. Here's the website: https://apphost1a.its.vanderbilt.edu/housing/Main/

It looks like you have to have your VUnetID. Not sure you'll actually get that info before starting, though...

 

 

TarHeels&Rebels

If you haven't found anything yet, check out JerryJennings.com.  He's our property manager for a rental house we have.  He's very friendly and only takes good homes in good areas.