Housing question

[ohyeah36.livejournal.com]

Hi there!
I am fairly new to davis_square. I am a current NYC resident looking to move to Davis Sq sometime around August 1st. I walked around the neighborhood when I was visiting this past weekend and totally fell in love with the area. I've checked the tags and I had a couple of questions I was hoping y'all could help me with.
Since I'm from NYC, I'm no stranger to outrageous rent prices--to me, 1600 for a 2 bedroom is a steal! If I was looking for a 1.5 bed around the Davis Square area, is 1400 a reasonable price? I'm hoping to be about 10-15 minutes from the T (closer is better, obviously, as I probably won't have a car). I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about where to look for listings. I'm checking Craigslist, obviously, but I know in NYC, it's hard to find a legitimate listing--a lot of them are scams, or brokers just looking for you to call them. On that note, any broker recommendations would be great.
I've also heard that it's better to look early for an apartment in the Boston area. I'm used to looking no more than a month before I want to move, but I get the impression that I should be starting to look soon. Is it hard to find available apartments over the summer?
I appreciate the help in advance and look forward to hopefully being a Massachusetts resident sometime soon! :)

Comments

[watchamacallit.livejournal.com]

So you want a place that is $1400 and a mile from public transit? Most. reasonable. request. ever. You'll do just fine! Stick with craigslist for now and if things get touchy (or you really want to just bang out 10 viewings in 1 weekend) go to realtors.

For comparison... I had a large 1 bedroom in Somerville (granted, a solid mile outside of Davis) for 800/month, including utilities. Now I have a smaller 1 bedroom in New Jersey for 1600.

[ohyeah36.livejournal.com]

Thanks for giving the comparison. I assume wherever you are in NJ is fairly close to NYC? It's sort of ridiculous how pricey anything remotely close to NYC is compared to... basically everywhere else.
I guess I didn't realize that a 10-15 minute walk is a mile away. That sounds awfully far... Do you think 1400 is just as reasonable if I want something closer, say, 5-10 minutes?

[alphacygni]

A 10-15 minute walk is only a full mile if you walk really fast, or are writing apartment ads and want them to seem closer to the subway than they are. Distance is distance. You can measure that on Google. But you need your own idea of how long it takes you to walk a certain distance.

[watchamacallit.livejournal.com]

I guess 10-15 min is less than a mile... regardless, you should be able to fine something within 10 minutes for your price-point.

[phoenixy.livejournal.com]

I think that's reasonable. I pay a little less than that for a one bedroom and a 3.5 minute walk to the T.