How do you move to a new town for a short period of time

[Juche]

I am wanting to check out some towns in the US (San Francisco, Raleigh NC, Atlanta). The jobs in my field are better in those areas and it would be a good experience to see different towns. I'm on unemployment and my goal would be to spend a month or two in a town looking for work and then move to another.

So I'm curious if anyone has done this? My goal was to find a place on roommates.com or craigslist and offer someone money for a 1-2 month lease, if I accept a roommate I can get a place for $250-500/month or so in most places.

My fear is the roommate(s) will suck or the place will be dead in the ghetto. So I'm not sure how to plan for that other than to research the hell out of the town first to find the good and bad areas.

But that is my big fear, living situations. I don't want to get stuck with a crap roommate, crap apartment or dangerous part of town.

But at the same time, if I move out there and do not have a place to live I have to live in my car or get a hotel, which is going to be expensive as hell.

Any ideas?

[Skittles]

1. try DU first - well, I guess you are right now :)

perhaps some DUers have space for you to park for a few weeks - times are hard; extra cash is very much welcome these days

[Juche]

2. Good plan

I was thinking of couchsurfing too, that could help. That way I wouldn't be forced to pick a bad apartment to avoid sleeping in the car.

If people want to rent out a guest bedroom to a guy with Jack Torrance as his avatar, feel free to PM me.

[Skittles]

5. I had an out of town friend do that

wanted to see how he liked this area - parked on my couch for a month, did some car work for me - yup

[XemaSab]

3. You think you're going to get a place for $250 to $500

in the bay area that isn't with dope addicts, in the ghetto, or with dope addicts in the ghetto?

You got some learnin', my friend. :P

[LeftyMom]

4. I think the rent is more than that for a peice of cardboard in a doorway in the Tenderloin.

[Juche]

6. True, SF is going to be more than that

I had a friend in the tenderloin who paid $500/month for his place with 3 other people. So SF is going to cost a more than $500. Which is why I'm not sure if that is where I want to go for long. I have a friend from college who is there, maybe he can help me.

But Raleigh/Durham/Chapel hill seems affordable. And I just got back from San Diego, and there are places in decent parts of town that are only $450-600/month with roommate(s). So it is possible.

[Chan790]

7. Here's an idea.

Get bonded-and-insured as a professional housesitter...if you love and are good with animals, you can get certified (with training from your local branch of the HSUS or shelter. Many offer these courses as a way to raise operating funds so you're helping the strays while you better yourself) to be a professional pet-sitter as well. I am and my roommate Crys is as well. (Neither one of us is doing it currently. People generally won't pay you to watch their furkids or possessions if you're not going to be generally-present 24/7 with few excursions. It is frequently how I pay my bills and not freeze to death while I lock myself away to write.)

The pay sucks and it is not the glam-gig that it is made out to be. It is a way to get free lodging and see an area of the country rent-free. There are sites that run/broker these services...they tend to be subscription-based for the sitters (around $20-$50/year, much of that going to credit and background check expenses and bonding) and charge clients a fee for services as well. Or you can work by work of mouth...there is still a minimal cost to get insured and bonded, you look more reputable if you are.

[Juche]

8. Interesting

However do the home owners require you be at the house all the time? If I wanted to go out and see the city for several hours during the day would that be a problem?

[Chan790]

12. It depends on the client.

It's up to you to work out the conditions of your individual sitter-client relationship and the rules and terms of employ, as well as compensation. I don't like to deal with the finances so I use a billing service.

I've had one woman who absolutely refused to let me leave for more than an hour at a time unless the house burnt down, going so far as to leave me an expense-account card (a pre-paid VISA) and arranged-transport of goods (That is, anything reasonable I needed I just had to call up and order/buy over the phone and have a cab pick it up.) to have anything I wanted delivered and pick up a $250 Peapod (grocery delivery) tab for 2 months of house-sitting. I billed her out the nose for being a pain-in-my-ass and she paid it gladly because 99% of the sitters she contacted wouldn't agree to her terms at any cost.

I have another one (my aunt) who told me that she didn't even care if I slept there or went out during the day as long as I let the cats out every morning at 6am, gave the diabetic kitty its' insulin, fed them all in their designated places and times (the 45lb. diabetic cat got fed separately a different food and in a much much smaller amount), let them in at 5PM to eat and out again after dinner then back in again as they wanted prior to 9PM. (You cannot imagine how impossible it is to impose a curfew on a cat.)

I've had clients who told me they didn't care if I had guests and clients who forbid me to let anybody else (including service personnel and LEO without warrants) into the house. I've had clients who wanted me there 18 hours a day and clients who were okay if I stopped in for 10 minutes to make sure they hadn't gotten robbed. Clients who wanted me to answer the phone and take messages for their home-based business. Clients who forbid me to use their internet or cable and clients who said "Hey have some popcorn, hit the liquor cabinet and rent some PPV." Gigs that included babysitting. Gigs that were lodging-only (that is, unpaid except the room.) Day-work gigs that didn't include lodging and were just to have someone in the house while the homeowner was at work or to keep an eye on contractors or make sure there was someone there to sign for packages or be there for the cable guy.

All up to you what you want to do and work out with the homeowner. Like I said the pay sucks, with the exception of the one PITA client and the babysitting gigs, the most I've ever made for it was $200/week or $40/day. Still, rent-free living in Manhattan is a perk in itself.

[KamaAina]

9. I'm doing it right now, sort of

I just started a new job here in San Jose (~50 mi. from SF). An extended-stay hotel here put an ad on Craigslist for its long-term apartment program. $1100-1200 a month (down here), no housekeeping, but they do feed me breakfast.

Now I have an actual apartment to move into next month.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. Hey! Congrats on finding the rental.

:toast:


And to the OP: in the SF Bay area, look for a room sublet in the East or South Bay. There are plenty of people struggling to pay big mortgages around those areas now. Actually getting an apartment with roommates for only $500/month would be unlikely but it could happen especially in the Berkeley area and some neighborhoods in SF near colleges.

[krispos42]

11. You can check oiut the area demographically

http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en


For example, you can put in a city and state to call up demographics, then you can call up a map of the city and see how the various statistical areas compare on that specific demographic. For example, average income, % of high school graduates, % of college graduates, race, age, etc.

Just keep an eye on the values of the shading scale... it varies based on local conditions and zoom factor. It's not an absolute scale, it's a relative one.

[pitohui]

13. the homewood suites?

some towns have nothing but cheap extended stay hotels all over the place, vegas for one springs to mind, don't know why they wouldn't have similar in atlanta etc

getting a roommate always ALWAYS prove to be more expensive than it's worth, as the responsible person ends up paying for and cleaning up everything while the less responsible person takes the free ride (bitter much? wow, how could you tell!) -- of course the roommate will suck, that's why they're currently in the market for a new roommate

[Juche]

14. It'll only be for a month or two

And besides, if the roommate does suck it'll have a silver lining. It will force me to go outside and see the town rather than staying in the apartment all day.

[mnhtnbb]

15. My son has a 2 bedroom townhouse in Cary, on the edge of Morrisville,

very close to RTP (Research Triangle Park) and the RDU (Raleigh/Durham) airport. It's a new development and very nice part of town. If you're interested, I could ask him if he'd be willing to rent his second bedroom for 1-2 months. You would need to be gay friendly. I think he'd probably charge about $400/month.