After about a year and a half of contemplating and 5 visits, my girlfriend and I have made our final decision - we are moving from Orlando to Buffalo on May 1. That's 6 long weeks away!! Oh well. All I have to do now is find a place to rent that has central A/C and allows dogs, and preferably has private laundry hook-ups as well. Anyone know of such a place?
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Thanks for the feedback, carolinian. Gives me more to think about when I finally do purchase and also if I end up renting in a duplex. It definitely is much different than here where any building 10 years old is considered ancient.
As someone who moved up from the south (North Carolina) last year, I'll add my 2 cents with my experience on housing issues (note the "in my experience" disclaimer").
Nearly all of the houses and apartments I've seen in the city of Buffalo are more than 50 years old. Many of them were designed back when you cruised down Elmwood in a horse and buggy. They were built in a time before we had many of the modern technologies that make modern life comfortable. The two biggest comfort busters in an old buffalo house are lack of central air and lack of insulation, the last one sucking exceptionally. If you live in an old house in buffalo, you are not going to have heat and A/C evenly distributed like you do with central air; you're going to have hot and cold zones of the house. This is especially true in the winter if you have old 100 year-old wood around the giant windows that most of the houses have that leak like a sieve, and when you have wall unit A/Cs, which are, by the way, and real pain in the ass to put up and take down every summer. Wall units are just not a decent substitute for central air, end of story. The other thing is that most of the 100 year old houses do not have insulation, and during the winter this is going to affect your comfort, as well as your pocketbook. I know people in Amherst in a relatively new house whose fuel costs for their entire house are well below the $280 I spent last month to heat the upstairs half of the house I live in. Expect to spend each fall putting up shrink-plastic over your windows; this may run you $100+ depending on how big your windows are. Included heat can be nice, but if you're not the one in control of the thermostat your house may be heated according to your landlord's preferences, which are usually quite cheap. I've known several people who got in trouble with their landlords after they ran up high electric bills heating their apartments with electric heaters because their heat-included places weren't warm enough.
The old houses also tend to be dusty due to the fact that they're old and have beaucoup plaster that somehow escapes through the walls (at least my experience). In an old Buffalo house you also may have a shortage of conveniant power outlets, and you may be able to find only one or two three prong outlets in the entire place. You can put adapters on to make them three prong, but you may be taking a small hit in safety and your surge protectors for electronic devices are not going to work very well if at all.
If you want central air and insulation, you're probably going to have to either move to the suburbs or find some place in the city that recently been renovated. Some people in the city have turned old buildings into apartment complexes by gutting them and putting in all new stuff, so you might be able to get what you want at a place like that.
I don't want to totally gloom and doom you. If you're able to put up with giving up some of the comforts you had in a newer place back home, you get to live in an exciting city with lots to do where you can walk to places you want to go. And the old houses are a pain in the butt, but they are quite beautiful. You're not going to find cathedral ceilings, solid wood doorways, and tons of wainscoting in a new place. And some of the old neighborhoods are very beautiful in the summertime (Richmond ave, e.g.).
It's all about tradeoffs.
YAY! Yet another couple moving to our city.
Congrats on the excellent choice.
When all this climate change hits you will feel as if you didn't leave Orlando.
chico is your man - he just went through this kind of thing.
Anyway, yeah, I agree - rent at least for a little bit. You'll be able to get a better feel for the place and what neighborhood or suburb (please don't) you want to choose.
Maybe you should leave the apartment-hunting up to the GF then! ;) I agree it's a good idea to rent and get to know the area before buying. That's what I intended to do- and then I decided that I hate moving so much that I'm just going to stay put right where I am.
Well, if you like to keep the place at 60 degrees, your heating bill won't be all that bad.
For a large 3-br with old windows (we plastic them) and a so-so furnace, we probably average $325/month for gas (heat and cooking) during January/ February/ March. For perspective: we keep it at 64 when not at home and when sleeping, and around 68 during morning and evening.
And we're right near Parkside (we even joined the Parkside Community Association, even if we're not exactly in Parkside proper). If we get a nice day this week maybe I'll run through the neighborhood instead of through the park and I'll make a note of any For Rent signs I see. There are definitely rentals in that neighborhood.
I actually got with a realtor while up there last time and looked at a few houses to buy, but I decided I first want to rent for a little while and while doing so, really get to know the neighborhoods, etc so I can be completely happy with the house I purchased and where I purchased it. I do plan on staying in Buffalo.
I've been coming to this site for quite a while and reading posts, just never posted anything of my own because, well, I live in Orlando and don't have too much relevant to say. That will hopefully be changing with the move coming up and I'll hopefully become more active on the site. Don't really remember where I first found it.
I'm trying to convince her that a window unit will be ok but so far she won't hear of it. She always has the apartment at about 60 degrees. What can I expect a heating bill to be in the heart of winter for a month?
And chico, I personally want to live in the Parkside neighborhood eventually. This will be more important when I buy my house but for the first year I can tolerate the inner ring of 'burbs...Amherst, ToT, Kenmore.
Thanks to everyone for being so responsive to my post too!!!
Yeah, central air will never be as important as included heat. Trust us on that. Wall units are no big whoop and usually more than adequate handle the situation (My mom has one and on the hottest day in the summer it's nice in chilly throughout the entire first floor).
Try and convince your gf who's living in hot Orlando weather that when she gets to her first chilly buffalo night that she's not going to want to foot the bill for the heat that she'll need to be cozy in, and our beaches, though shabby, are all free.
Otherwise, Chico & co. is very right on in all of their assertions. It's cool that you guys are coming to b-town... how'd you find out about this here site? I'm just curious.
Ooh, and nice user name. I like that car.
Do you know how long you'll be in town? Maybe you want to buy a place... that could at least solve the dog issue.
Good luck... dog friendly and central air may be hard to come by. A window unit (or two) really isn't unbearable in a pinch...
It's definitely good to have family in the area to help you out. Two things that occur to me as I read your follow-up:
(1) Where in the Buffalo area do you and your gf actually *want* to live? What do you want to be close to? and
(2) This might sound crazy but yes it's still "early" for a lot of rentals... as I learned last summer, most places aren't listed in the ads more than a month in advance of the lease start date. So waiting till first week of April to find a rental for a May 1 move sounds insane to people like me who like to plan way ahead of time, but it might be worth your while to hold off for a week or two if you'll still have time to look at the end of this month.
Well the Central A/C isn't a requirement of mine, it's of my girlfriend. Still, I remember being a kid up there and everyone would be sweating to death in their homes during the summer. If it doesn't have central a/c, she refuses to go! I won't be able to make it up personally as the flights are suddenly expensive again. I have family there that could check a place out that I was interested in if I come across it.
I have been checking on Craigslist and Artvoice. Most of them want a tenant sooner or don't like dogs and have no A/C. We found a townhome in Amherst we can rent that meets all our requirements, but it's a bit more $$$ than I'd ideally pay for the Buffalo area. So I may end up at that place if I don't come across an "independent" rental this week.
Central air isn't that critical around here- I wouldn't that deter you from an otherwise good place. I'd rank dishwasher/laundry/covered parking higher.
But I agree with chico- if you can't come up for a visit, I'd start with the artvoice. if you can come- I'd still check the artvoice but it's also worth just driving around and looking for 'for rent' signs- there are plenty.
Hi Tiburon,
Welcome to (e:strip) ! We ((e:chicoschica) and I) recently moved to Buffalo and we don't regret it at all -- and we're always happy to hear about/from more transplants to B-lo.
I'd like to help if I can... if on the off chance I hear of any good leads I'll let you know, but I'd have to say if you want to live in the city (Elmwood area or downtown or Allentown) you should be checking out craigslist and Artvoice. (You probably already are, but if you're not, you should.) I think the Artvoice ads come out online on Wednesdays around noon, which gives you an edge over anyone who's waiting for the paper version to turn up on Thursday.