Adjusting to Small Town LivingWritten by dan the roommate man
Sometimes your chosen career path can take you away from bright lights of big city to quiet, slow pace of a rural community.If you want to be a ski instructor, for example, you will more likely settle in one of small Rocky Mountain towns of Steamboat Springs, Durango or Beaver Creek than in big city of Denver. You may be in motion picture/television business where a job awaits you not in Hollywood, but in burgeoning film capitols along Carolina coasts in Wilmington, North Carolina (Dawson's Creek) or Beaufort, South Carolina (The Big Chill, Forest Gump, The Great Santini, Prince of Tides.) Perhaps you've taken a job in food technology for a prominent manufacturer, but you won't be living in Grand Rapids or Battle Creek - chances are you'll bed down in Hastings, Michigan. What kind of housing will you find when you arrive? What will lifestyle be like? And will you be able to adjust from pace of big city to more relaxed, neighborly lifestyle of small town living? As a renter, you will more likely find yourself living in a small apartment unit or a house than in a large apartment complex. Since apartments are created to meet demands of a transient population, with turnover expected every six months to a year, a large apartment building would have to generate enough rentals to cover seasonal periods of low rentals, plus attract new renters on a revolving basis. A small town is not likely to have a large enough employer base to attract that number of renters, unless it is a military base or a tourist or coastal town. Instead you will more likely find house rentals, which can be found through local REALTORS®, or large homes which have been subdivided into duplexes, triplexes and quadriplexes. Bed and breakfast inns or boardinghouses will be more common for temporary living arrangements. Gone will be anonymonity of big city apartment life. Norman Crampton, author of The 100 Best Small Towns in America, Macmillan, and a veteran of city-to-town downscale move, has some insights into some adjustments you will want to consider before making move from a large city to a small town, first of which is housing. In small towns, people are much more likely to own their own homes or to own rental properties, but norm is likely to be single-family detached dwellings. While some small towns will mirror state averages in owner-occupied housing, some areas can be significantly higher. For example, in Monroe, Wisconsin 69.3% of homes are owner-occupied, while state average is $66.7%, but in Mount Pleasant, Texas, owner-occupied housing is 72.3% while state homeownership is 60.9%. Plymouth, New Hampshire, with a large off-campus student population (Plymouth State College,) boasts approximately 45% multifamily housing.
| | One is the Loneliest Number ... But it Has its AdvantagesWritten by dan the roommate man
When you're on lookout for an apartment, one of first things to enter your mind is whether or not you plan to have a roommate. Undoubtedly, you've heard from proponents and opponents sitting on both sides of argument. If you go roommate route, you can reduce your rent by 50 percent. Even if two of you aren't as snug as two peas in a pod, at least once a month (when you pay your rent), you'll be thankful. And if, even better, two of you become instant friends, you've got built-in company -- a support system when you arrive home in evenings after a tough day at office. She's a sounding board for your every frustration. What could be better?Living alone could be better -- and is better for many apartment renters. Sure, it costs more, but you're paying for indispensable amenities of peace and quiet, privacy, and knowing that when phone rings, it's for you. Nobody eats your groceries, leaves their clothes on floor, or arrives home at 2 a.m. and interrupts your beauty rest with slam of a door. On other hand, single life has been known to become lonely on occasion, perhaps even claustrophobic. When weekends roll around, you social butterflies are climbing walls. And should your plans fall through, you find yourself having a lively conversation with your dirty laundry. Yet, still others love solitude that a roommateless existence allows. Self-determination is their mantra -- ability to go any place they want, any time. So there are two very valid sides to this coin. If you find yourself with roommate from hell, there's precious little you can do about it if you're both paying rent. If you decide to get a roommate, you're going to need to sit down first and discuss anything and everything. Even if you already know your roommate, you probably don't. Talking about these subjects up front initially may seem callous, cold, and calculating, but better you clear air now than to discover later that you made a serious mistake. Here are a few suggestions for your discussion: Money * When are bills due? * How are they going to be split? * Is there a damage deposit? * Who is deposit payable to? * Under what conditions is it refundable?
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