ezcheese

great idea Cotuit. thanks for taking the time to organize this.

for our first 2 months we were in a temporary furnished apartment that was paid for by my girlfriend's employer in waltham, which is west of boston. we are in the process of moving to our new apartment in malden, which is about 5 miles north of boston. i will be unpacking stuff all day tomorrow! you guys can definitely find a decent place for less than $1800 a month. the apartment we're moving into is $1250 a month and it's very nice. but it's also in malden, so we're getting more for our money since we're not actually in boston. but our new apartment is within walking distance to the orange line, so it will be really easy for us to go into boston when we want to go out and have some fun. it may be a good idea to study the different public transit options in different areas near where you will work. there are plenty of places you can look that will put you in a good position to get to work and to get into the city without having to actually live in the city. of course, coming from nyc, i don't know if you have a car, or cars, but if you really want to be able to walk everywhere, then being in the city and taking the T to work is a better option. check out http://www.mbta.com/ for info on the transit options in the boston area. also, one place that we actually looked that i think is really cool is an old chocolate factory that has been converted into apartments in dorchester. you can check out their website here: http://www.bakerchocolateapts.com/ hope this helps.

coming out of the New England aquarium on the Boston waterfront:

i have only been in the Boston area for about 2 months, and i don't really know anything about the area you will be working in. the best advice i can give from someone who just went through this (i moved from North Carolina) is: make http://www.craigslist.org your best friend for finding an apartment, and if at all possible, go and physically check out the areas you are interested in. don't trust any descriptions or even pictures. check out the places in person. we also have a cat and one thing we discovered was that having a cat really cut down the number of apartments to choose from. you probably have already had some experience with this. it's great that you will be paid to relocate. we also got reimbursed and it really helps cut down on the stress of moving. i'm sure you will love Boston. remember to try and have fun while looking for your new place! it helps to have a bit of a sense of humor when you're being shown a total dump and the real estate broker or owner is trying to sell it to you as a real "find."

nice shots of beantown! i originally posted this in the Charlotte section, but the link is now dead. out of all the pics i have taken, this is still probably my fav. Westin hotel, Charlotte, NC

wellington station rail yard:

massachusetts state house

i have similar fond memories of the holly hill mall in burltington. of course it has never been and never will be anything close to even four seasons mall in greensboro, but i have great memories of my grandfather getting me ice cream at the woolworth's cafe.

some kid climbing a monument in waltham common:

the boston skyline from prospect hill park in waltham

it is really insanely dense here. i just moved up here from Greensboro, North Carolina. needless to say the difference is night and day. Somerville, Massachusetts which is across the river from Boston is actually much denser than Boston. in fact, it's the most densly populated city in New England at over 18,000 people per square mile.

boston from the concord turnpike:

i like the first one.

french alps:

it was a one bed with small "study" off the bedroom for $1,000 a month. it was the second apartment i had looked at once i got to boston and started looking around the different areas. this place really wasn't all that bad. it had wall to wall carpet which needed a good cleaning, and the kitchen and bath were pretty outdated, but it wasn't a dump either. plus, i think the setup was pretty typical for that pricerange in somerville. no dishwasher, no washer/dryer hookups.

haha, my dad was telling me about that song last week.

the view of Boston from an apartment i recently looked at on winter hill - Somerville, MA:

i loved it! it's nice to be in a city where there are actually people out in the streets and there is plenty of stuff to do. the T is a GREAT public transportation system and driving also was not as crazy as i thought it would be. i really like somerville and davis square especially. i like the fact that i can pretty much walk where i need to go. and everyone i dealt with was very nice. it was kind of funny, we had very pleasant experiences with people all over, i met and had some interesting conversations with many people in boston and somerville and then when we were flaying back, we stopped over in atlanta for a few hours and everybody had an attitude. my girlfriend and i actually ended up talking about how we think that people seem happier and are nicer in new england than they are down south. so, besides being really stressed out trying to find an apartment, we really liked it. i think the only thing we are not looking forward to is the snow in the winter. we talked to an old guy who worked at the hotel who goes down to florida during the winter and then comes back up to boston in april. he's been doing that for about 15 years now!

pretty interesting.

i checked out the mbta website and tried the trip planner too. i immediately noticed that it didn't create very logical routs. if you rent a car while you're there, make sure to have a good street level map of the city and surrounding area. we had an awesome map that made navigating all the different areas pretty easy. make sure that the map shows the one-way streets and which directions they run. also, you should count on everyone doing credit checks. some brokers will work with you if you happen to have bad credit because they understand the situation. it will definitely help your chances to have perfect credit if you happen to be competing with someone else for a particular apartment though.

there is a guy we communicated with who just rennovated some apartments in east boston who was asking around $1200 a month for some very nice 2 bedroom apartments. i think you had to pay extra for off street parking, but he sent us several pictures of the apartments and he was trying to get good tenants in there with him. (he lives in one of the apartments.) if you would like, i can send you his information. that was one place that we actually didn't physically visit while we were there, as we need to live on the other side of boston for the best access to the rest of new england, but i have read some things that are in line with what cotuit is saying.

haha, exeter IS a one-way street! looks like we passed with flying colors. it is funny to see people back down a one-way street, like having the car face the right way makes it proper. in our case this was pretty much the only option we had in order to get close enough to the hotel to have the valet come out and park it. i also noticed the infamous quick left turn, where a person punches it when the light turns green in order to turn left before the traffic starts flowing.

wow, we had quite an experience last week in boston. we looked all over the place and still came home empty handed. we were not willing to settle for paying $1200 for dump after dump. there were a couple of really excellent apartments, but by the time we had our applications in, they had already been rented, or there were several people who already had applications in ahead of us. somerville was a neat place, but the market there is just ridiculous. my girlfriend held her ground when she went back to work yesterday and just laid it all out on the table. now she is getting an additional $5,000 a year base salary raise plus she learned the details of her commission, and they are putting us up in one of those corporate relocation fully furnished deals for our first two months so we won't feel rushed. so now, we'll be able to move up there after my last day of school and we will be able to live there while we look for a place, which will take a lot of the pressure off. this company is starting to come around as far as the differences in cost of living. the most amazing part of our trip was probably that we drove in from the airport on monday night to our hotel on the corner of exeter and boylston street and we actually made it to the hotel! there were still several streets closed, but there is that small alley that runs by the public library and we jumped on that and then backed down exeter until we got to the hotel. quite a first time boston driving experience! B)

i got back on sunday from my week-long apartment hunting trip and it was CRAZY! the best advice i can give at this point is that you really need to physically go to all the different areas that you are interested in and see them for yourself. my girlfriend and i visited several different towns and got a good feel for them while actually looking at available apartments that were in our price-range. you should be able to find a pretty decent place for you and your husband for $1300 a month. but still, in that price range, you will have to give up some things for others. also, if you find a place that is really nice that you like, you should immediately put in an application. we had 2 awesome apartments stolen right from under our noses within a 24 hour period. so, if you find a diamond in the roguh, act on it immediately! the best value for your money generally will still be in an apartment complex versus looking at multi-family houses. you will get nice apartments and amenities like washer&dryer and dishwasher plus ample parking. if you want to get a good flavor for the unique multi-family properties though, you can check with some real-estate brokers that deal with renting, although right now they are generally charging half fee (half a month's rent for showing you the property and handling the application) and sometimes full fee. (some may even not charge a fee on your end.) there is amazing arcitecture in the boston area and if you look hard enough, you should be able to find a nice place in a neat area.

Wow! It looks like we will have a front row seat for the marathon. We are staying at the Lenox hotel on Boylston street! Looks like we will start our new adventure with a bang! I have a few appointments to see some apartments in Dorchester and will be calling several other places in other areas. BTW, welcome to Urban Planet BostonGal! And thanks for the input.