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Guide to Renting Apartments at UW-Madison
Guide to Renting Apartments at UW-Madison
Congrats! You're coming to UW-Madison to pursue your graduate studies. Now you have to figure out where you're going to live. The following are a few pointers that will help you on your apartment search so you can find a convenient and affordable apartment that suits your needs.
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Start looking early.
While apartments are available all year round, it's always a good idea to start your apartment search early so that you will get the apartment you want. As a guideline, if you will be starting school in the fall, you should begin looking for apartments by January of that same year. If you will be starting in the spring, you should begin looking the summer of the previous year. In general, apartments closer to campus tend to rent faster than those further away from campus. Remember that UW is a big school and real estate is on high demand.
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Where in Madison.
If you will not have a car and if you are new to UW-Madison, you may want to look for apartments closer to campus. Potential areas to look in are Campus/Central, Near West, and Near East. There may also be some apartments on the West side that are close enough to campus and accessible through the bus line. Please keep in mind that many undergraduates at UW rent apartments especially in the Campus/Central Area, and the students can be pretty rowdy at night. If you do not like a lot of noise you may not want to live in these areas. Make sure to ask the landlord about noise in and around their property. In addition some landlords do not take care of their properties (e.g. no pest control, rodent problems, poor insulation, etc.), so you may want to ask about these things beforehand.
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Features You Should Look For.
It is ideal to find an apartment with the following:
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Water and Heat Included in rent —
it can get pretty cold during the winter, so it is nice to have heat included in the rent. If you have to pay for heat it may be expensive (ranging anywhere from $30-$60+ a month) depending on the size of your apartment and how warm you want it to be during the winter. If you are looking at a place that does NOT include heat, make sure to ask how much the heating bill is on average per month. Most apartments include water but some on occasion do not and may charge a small fee.
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Be on or close to the bus line
Being near a bus line is always convenient if you 1) cannot or do not want to drive to campus or 2) need to run errands around the town. Most students commute to campus by the bus because parking is limited or very expensive on campus. All UW-Madison students receive a free bus pass to ride the city buses. For more information on the Madison Metro Transit System go to:
http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/metro/metro.html.
This site has a phone number you can call and ask which buses go by the potential apartment and how often and late those buses run.
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On-site Laundry Facilities—
Having a laundry facility in your apartment is very convenient and a time-saver. Remember hauling laundry in the winter is not fun…no matter how close by the laundromat may be.
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Parking Included—If you have a car, it is best to find an apartment that includes parking (not offstreet). Please be aware that some apartments, especially those closer to campus, charge extra for parking and you could pay anywhere between $30-$100+ per month for a parking space.
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Ask around.
Feel free to email GERS students with questions about the location, prices, areas, etc. of the apartments you've been looking at. Their email addresses can be found on the following website:
http://studentservices.engr.wisc.edu/diversity/gers/index.html#SCHOLARS
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They can give you their opinion based on their experiences with Madison real estate and they may have lived in or visited a place you are currently looking at. In addition, some GERS students may be looking for new roommates if you are interested in sharing housing/costs.
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Where to look.
Below are some websites that will help you in your search for apartments in Madison. These websites are free for public use and provide helpful information about the Madison area. Please note that many of these websites contain private website links for a particular rental property.
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http://www.startrenting.com — Local and reliable guide. Be sure to look in Campus/Central, Near West, West, and Near East for apartments.
- http://www.aptshowcase.com — Also a local apartment guide, you can look for apartments in the Madison Area. You can probably start your search by looking through the Downtown/Campus zone and maybe expand the zones as you go.
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http://housing.civc.wisc.edu/ —Apartment listing hosted by the UW Campus Information and Visitor Center. You can customize your apartment search by location, size, type of housing, move in date, and many other options. The website also has a "frequently asked questions" list which provides more information about finding housing in Madison.
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http://www.madrent.com—
Another local apartment guide.
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Private real estate companies
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On campus student housing. Eagle Heights are the UW-Madison also apartments for graduate students and student families. For more information on Eagle Heights go to:
http://www.housing.wisc.edu/universityapartments/eagle_heighs.php.
You can also visit the UW-Madison housing page at:
http://www.housing.wisc.edu
for information about other on campus housing facilities and services.
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