Young professional relocating to Toledo area (Perrysburg, Heath: hardwood floors, apartments, rental)

[sanari]

I am a young (30 year old female) technology professional. I will be moving to your area in short time. My questions are, after the research I've done:

- Is it possible to live safely downtown? I will have a company vehicle and I am a bit worried about the rundown appearance of the city.
- The low rental rates put me in a (woohoo, savings!) mood, but is it too good to be true?
- I am using the zillow app to search for rental rates (not interested in buying), and the pickings outside the city are about the same as in the city. What gives?
- Proximity to my workplace is not an issue.
- I would like to be a bike ride away from a grocery store (1 mile) and a coffee shop. I bike ride a lot in my time off. A library wouldn't hurt either.
- I am not into the party scene, I do not drink or smoke. I keep to myself and I'm looking for a relatively quiet place.

Ideally what I want is a small space (I grew up in Texas and have recently become enamoured with small spaces and redesigning/remodeling to my taste. I prefer ranch style homes/apartment homes - I do not like stacked housing. Central air and relatively new interiors are on my must have list; hardwood floors and in-home laundry on the want list.

Would I be able to find something like this downtown? Surrounding area?

[sanari]

How about the 43609 area?

[ferraris]

Are you working downtown? If not, I don't understand why you are looking to live downtown. It sounds like you don't want a super-urban experience. There are plenty of lofts and apartments downtown that are safe, but they are definitely "stacked" housing (a term I haven't heard before.). What is your budget? I assume you can probably afford to rent an entire home if you'd like to. Since you don't have kids (I'm guessing), I would shoot for a safe area of the city rather than the suburbs, as it will be cheaper (unless you're working in the burbs).

Sanari's suggestion of the 43609 area is not a bad one, I'd add 43614 to that as well. In places like Harvard Terrace, Arlington, Beverly, Crossgates, Heatherdowns etc. you can find affordable places in safe areas that are decently walkable. There are apartments scattered throughout these neighborhoods, but they are majority single family homes. These areas would have easy access to grocery stores, parks, coffee shopts, etc.

[sanari]

My job entails traveling. I do not work in one place. So location or distance does not matter.

I think the reason I am attracted to living in the city is because of the super cheap cost of living. I can put away so much money. I am able to spend up to 600 in rent, but I do not WANT to. Hehe, make sense?

I am alone, no kids. And, I am sanari. xD I've just been doing a lot of research.

Thank you very much, so far!

[ferraris]

Sorry I didn't realize that you were responding to your own post. My mistake.

Do you need easy access to the highways or airports, or do you really just not care about location at all? Your options are wide open it sounds like. There's so many different areas of the city that it's hard to give you a complete list of areas that would work. Have you found any specific apartments/homes that you're interested in?

[Rebek56]

- I would like to be a bike ride away from a grocery store (1 mile) and a coffee shop. I bike ride a lot in my time off. A library wouldn't hurt either.

You might want to consider the Old Orchard/Hampton Park areas. There are four grocery stores within a mile of each other, along with at least one produce market, a Starbuck's, and several restaurants.

[Rebek56]

There is also a branch of the public library near the intersection of Central and Secor.

[canudigit]

The Westgate area though, is unfortunately not bike rider friendly. Could you imagine someone trying to cross the Secor/Central intersection or go from, say, the Sanger Branch Library to Starbucks on a bike? And the Secor corridor between the university and Westgate is soooo narrow, it's a challenge to have four lanes of traffic, much less a hapless bicyclist trying to squeeze in along the curb. The TPD is good for giving tickets to bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk for safety reasons. Remember the guy who got fined for not wanting to ride in the street on Alexis near Lewis a couple of years ago?

OP, if you are looking for a grocery store/coffee shop/hang out and walk places kind of existence within the city of Toledo, your best bet would probably be to try to find a rental right at the intersection of Central and Secor where you could walk, rather than try to navigate on a bicycle, to Westgate, which is not the most picturesque place (think parking lots) but does have a beautiful Fresh Market grocery store and a little strip with a Starbucks, Chipotle, and Five Guys and is close enough to the university to have a younger, hipper vibe than most parts of Toledo. at under $600/month, though, you would probably find yourself in a smaller apartment, and probably in stacked housing.

Downtown is attracting more and more young people, and the area around the ballpark and arena has improved about 200% over the past several years, but I don't know if you would be happy with the shopping options or the distance from other parts of the city, especially via bicycle. Traveling out of downtown on a bicycle to get to the mall, for example, would involve riding through some of the roughest parts of the city, no matter which way you go, and you probably would not feel very safe as a young, single woman on a bicycle in those parts of town. I am a female and have lived in or around Toledo my entire life, and I would honestly not feel very safe riding from downtown to any other part of the city on a bicycle because of the areas that you are forced to ride through to get outside of downtown, and other than some cool lofts, great restaurants, and ball games and arena events, there isn't all that much in downtown Toledo, particularly in the area of shopping.

Your ideal place, based on what you are looking for, would probably be the Levis Commons area in the suburb of Perrysburg, but you sure won't find anything there for under $600/month. In fact, you will not find anything in most desirable areas of Toledo itself for under $600, sorry to say. A 2 bedroom apartment in the 43613 ZIP would run you about $500+/month, in addition to paying utilities. Under $600, especially if you want a ranch style house, would be virtually impossible to find unless it was in a bad neighborhood. Toledo is less expensive than a lot of other parts of the country, but it isn't "that" cheap. A lot of people really like living in the Toledo area and are willing to pay good money to do so.

[Tobias C]

Downtown is fairly safe, but by most of the things you listed, its probably not ideal for you.

I would also suggest the same general area around Westgate (Central&Secor). I don't specifically know what you mean by wanting to rent a Ranch style place. Like rent a ranch style, single family home? Or rent an apartment in a complex of one story, sidebyside twinplexes?. While youll have to clarify about your desired apartment style, the Lincolnshire neighborhood (north side of Central, between Secor & Talmadge) is mostly ranch homes, and its all within biking (even walking) distance of places like Starbucks & Biggby Coffee, as well as Fresh Market, Churchills, Bassetts Health Foods, Claudias Health Foods, and Krogers. Sanger Branch Library is also close. Also not far down Central to the West is Wildwood Metropark which is safe and a great place to walk or jog or just enjoy nature.

Prices of houses to rent in the area wouldn't be cheap though. Under 600 would be rare. There's plenty of apartmebts around 400-600 in this area, that are still fairly safe, are car break-in would be the worst threat if anything.

[Tobias C]

I've lived in this precise area, including walking everyday and while the main roads are wide and fast moving, the immediate side streets are perfect for walking or biking, just takes some caution to get across Central mostly. It's still the area of the city with the best quality amenities (besides downtown, but it doesn't even have an actual grocery store, with the exception of the farmers market).