7 cool cities with cheap rent

[justin]

Thought some of you might be interested:

http://tinyurl.com/bntax

The list includes hip cities that, in spite of their hipness, still have cheap rents.

Who made the list?

Athens, GA
Atlanta
Austin
Denver
Minneapolis
Nashville
Raleigh

Many are college towns.

From reading the list, it seems many places have a "Five Points" area that is hip and happening. Anyone have one of those "Five Points" areas in your city?

 

[dex]

I'm living is a nice area of Atlanta 1 bedroom $750/mo
I could have found less expensive apartments if I wanted to.

 

[Nords]

The list includes hip cities that, in spite of their hipness, still have cheap rents.
Athens, GA

Hip? I haven't been there in 25 years, but I bet there hasn't been much change. I doubt that anyone associates the Army's Airborne playground with "hipness"...

 

[Ol_Rancher]

I own a 606 sq. ft. one bedroom condo a block or so from town lake within walking distance to the entertainment districts (6th St & 4th St) and less to the hike and bike trail. Good view of downtown lights from balcony. The rent I collect is $550/month.

What is weird is my property tax bill on it is $1500+ / year while taxes on my ranch 60 miles west of Austin are $791 / year.

Welcome to Austin, Taxes.

 

[justin]

Hip? I haven't been there in 25 years, but I bet there hasn't been much change. I doubt that anyone associates the Army's Airborne playground with "hipness"...

Never been there. Kiplinger.com's list of cool cities, not mine! Maybe the college town part is hip and cool?

 

[astroboy]

Athens seems to be getting alot of good press lately as a place to retire. Is there anyone who is or has recently lived there who can tell us the real scoop?

 

[vic]

I own a 606 sq. ft. one bedroom condo a block or so from town lake within walking distance to the entertainment districts (6th St & 4th St) and less to the hike and bike trail. Good view of downtown lights from balcony. The rent I collect is $550/month.

Welcome to Austin, Taxes.

If that is West of 35, you should raise that by at least a 100 bucks

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We rent a 3 bed 2.5 bath 1650sqft FURNISHED Condo in Northeast Florida, backs onto a nice river that leads to the IntraCoastal (Lots of Wildlife). There is not back yard to speak of but it does have a 12x12 screened lanai that my DW calls the penalty box, that overlooks the water. We pay a mere $800 including W/D, Electricity, Cable and Full Time HS Internet. All we pay is phone. Renting is Far Cheaper than buying in today's market, IMHO of course. we got this one from the Craig List, so no broker was involved. A broker will want at least one months rent per year, and quite honestly they rent to anyone with a credit card or a checkbook. A neighbor of ours rents her condo, and gave up on brokers, as one renter simply wrecked the place costing her about $8k to restore. She now gets her tennants from the Craig List also. She has 2 condos in the development, lives in one rents the other. This condo we are in sells for about $250k, I personally would not buy it for that as you can buy a beautiful detatched home with a 2 car Garage about 2000-2350sqft for about $325k in the general area. The local taxes alone on that would be about $5k per year (1.7% I think is what NE Florida goes for).

SWR

 

[polloloco]

I did grow up just outside Athens, a small county that was entirely rural with large farms in the 50's and started to become the preferred bedroom community for UGA's professors/doctors/lawyers/real estate developers in the 60's.
Have not lived there since graduating from UGA in 1972, but go back several times a year to visit grandparents, parents and other friends/relatives. There has been LOTS of growth and change, including a round the city four lane. The main shopping areas have moved to the west and south. Downtown is now a collage of restaurants, bars and shops. The rural county to the south is filled with hundreds of subdivisions and houses priced 250 K and up, up, up.

But, you can still find real estate that is relatively inexpensive compared to larger metropolitan areas, though expensive compared to south GA, AL and MS.

 

[ESRBob]

From reading the list, it seems many places have a "Five Points" area that is hip and happening. Anyone have one of those "Five Points" areas in your city?

Justin,
What is a "Five Points" area?

Hip can be hard to find, especially if you also want cheap. As you get older, hip seems less important than other stuff. but for me, 'green' is important, or 'creative' or 'authentic', but those areas don't always come cheap either. Rural areas around big east coast ciites can sometimes have it at a reasonable price., (e.g. Hudson River Valley in NY, Berkshires in Mass, mountain area in North Carolina) One idea is to find a musical artist you really like and then look at his/her tour schedule as a way to potentially find kindred spirits around the country or world. Another way is possibly to see where a favorite store or coffee shop has put up sites, if the whole notion of chains isn't repulsive to you. These people do the demographic analysis so you don't have to.

Richard Florida wrote a book called "The Rise of the Creative Class" which is all about how cities can make themselves attractive to people on this type of hunt. The book lists many good hip/green/authentic areas of the U.S., and he might have some more recent work that gives you an updated list.

 

[justin]

Justin,
What is a "Five Points" area?

Five Points area = any place that locals refer to as "Five Points". For example, in my city, the Five Points area refers to a 5-leg intersection that is surrounded by "hip" or quaint retail outlets and eateries - antique stores, coffee shop, neighborhood grill, popular pizza place, independent theater, etc.

I noticed some of the descriptions of those 7 cool cities referred to the "Five Points" area of town. I'm curious to find out if other cities have similar "hip" areas of town called "Five Points".

 

[Craig]

I've been ribbed a couple times about TN, but I've gotta tell you ... things are happening in Nashville. Nissan HQ coming to town, and home prices are rising quickly here ... lots of development going on. I'm amazed.

 

[preben]

Not a single foreign city?
Dammit selling and moving to the US tomorrow!
Cheers!

 

[HFWR]

Be sure to bring some Thai niceties along!!