The Rushed Moving blues...

[DLM]

Hello folks,
My fiance and I are currently looking to move to nashville by the end of this month, or first week or so of February. We are first time renters with little credit to speak of. (but not bad credit) I'm currently unemployed until we get to Nashville and I find a new job, and my fiance is transferring to another branch of the restauraunt she works in, so with only one current verifiable source of income we're likely not eligible for anything on our own without a cosigner (we do have one available)..For starters we are going to get a studio or 1BR for 400-500 I think..So far i've called every listing in the 400-450$ price range that were listed on apartments.com and rent.com and whenever I found one that sounded promising they said the cosigner was required to live in state so it's easier for them to get their money if we flake out on them..Which is a pain since our co-signer lives in Houston.. So far that has been the story on all of them that had vacanies by the time we need...Except...

This one place (village west apartments on tennessee ave i think) told us that we wouldn't need a cosigner and was really cooperative..Sounded decent until my cousin happened to link me to the apartmentratings page for it (http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate...ts-313591.html)

^The apartment rating and listed reviews for this place are fricken horrible and I was wondering if any of you are familiar with the complex or know whether it's even tolerable...Maybe the reviews were over-exaggerated..likely not, though. I'm only looking for 1 6mo/ lease with whichever place we find, so i guess i'll have to take what I can get if I want a roof over my head...I just dont want to be responsible for my fiance getting raped.

I called the complex afterwards and it went down like this:
(ME)- So uhm..I was wondering if you could tell me about the community?
(Them)-What do you mean?
(ME)-Is it a loud community? Is there a lot of crime?
(Them)-Every place has crime (wtf kind of answer is this? LOL)
(ME)-Well that's a very vague answer, lady. To be more specific, is there much crime in the complex itself?
(Them...quiet as a mouse)-No..

Sounds shady as hell to me, but if it's not that bad I suppose I can learn to adapt for 6 months. I live right outside of memphis currently so i'm pretty used to less than perfect areas and less than perfect people.

Does anyone have any input on the general area or this complex in general? Or know of some other cheap places around nashville (preferrably within 15-20 minutes of the airport) that might have availabilities and doesn't require a co-signer to live in state? It's a really lame business policy, in my opinion, to require a co-signer to live in state. Our co-signer is an engineer and makes plenty of money with great credit, so they're only hurting themselves in this instance since one way or another they would be getting their money on time.

Ah well..Sorry for the long post..I'm sick of looking for apartments. I'm at the end of my rope. Any help is welcome and appreciated.

-Dustin

[Haunted]

Geez Dustin, what a drag. My advice would be to make a road trip week end and stay at a cheap motel while checking out neighborhoods. You never know what a community is like until you spend a night there. We are downtown and I can honestly say I have not had a good nites sleep since leaving California (OK I lived in the boondocks where they rolled up the sidewalks at nite) but for whatever reason this area is a rowdy place at all hours. I would suggest that you look near the college areas since students are also on a budget. Stay away from downtown!!! It's awful. Over priced and noisy, dirty and generally unhealthy. On the upside, you will have no trouble finding general employment.

[Charliy]

"The States" (the area of town where streets have state names) is a rather rough part of town.