Moving to Ann Arbor, MI on very short notice. What do I need to do?
July 16, 2016 6:55 PM Subscribe
Or maybe not. I am in the running for a job at the University of Michigan that came on the scene unexpectedly. It's at the second interview stage. If I get this job, I will find out in about a month and then start the month after that. I need help figuring this all out, especially housing.
Tl;dr I may be moving on short notice to Ann Arbor, MI area from an urban region in the southeast US. What do I need to do to make sure I don’t overlook important details that surface because of different cultures and climates?
Details:
Ten days ago, I got word that there is a brand new program starting up that needs a director. The phone interview was this morning, and at the end of the call they asked me to come for an in-person interview in a couple of weeks. The program is highly specialized, and I am a very strong candidate. For various reasons, I am highly motivated to make this work.
So, I have approximately 4 weeks to position myself as best I can in case I get offered the job, and 4 more weeks until I would start.
My priority is to get my house sold and find housing up there.
Specifics about me. Middle aged white woman. Single, no kids. Cat. Moderate income; I work in nonprofit, so "director" doesn't mean all that much. I own my home. I have a car. I don't have many social supports here to do things for me after I leave. I'll likely need to fly back and forth a couple of times at the very least. I have a room that doesn't currently have flooring, just subfloor. I had planned to install hardwoods, but if I get this job, I think I'll opt for a quick carpeting fix.
On the one hand, my question is super broad, “What do I need to do to get this accomplished?”
However, I highly suspect that there are many physical and cultural differences that I do not remember. I am currently in the southeast, and haven't lived in Michigan since the late 1980s. I visit a lot because my family is in the state, but I don’t know Ann Arbor at all, other than it’s expensive in the housing realm. I might need to live elsewhere. But buy vs. rent? Preliminary searching makes it seem like buying is going to be both cheaper and nicer stock. I don’t know neighborhoods, I don’t know how far cities are from each other, I don’t know traffic, and I don’t know what I don’t know.
What I guess I’m getting at is that I don’t want to move somewhere and unthinkingly get, for example, a house without a garage. I don’t need one where I am now. I would want one in a snowy climate. What are all the other things that I don’t remember or that might not occur to me? What expenses would I have up there that I don’t have here?
Sorry about the rambling; I had a medical procedure today and am under the influence of hydrocodone.
Tl;dr I may be moving on short notice to Ann Arbor, MI area from an urban region in the southeast US. What do I need to do to make sure I don’t overlook important details that surface because of different cultures and climates?
Details:
Ten days ago, I got word that there is a brand new program starting up that needs a director. The phone interview was this morning, and at the end of the call they asked me to come for an in-person interview in a couple of weeks. The program is highly specialized, and I am a very strong candidate. For various reasons, I am highly motivated to make this work.
So, I have approximately 4 weeks to position myself as best I can in case I get offered the job, and 4 more weeks until I would start.
My priority is to get my house sold and find housing up there.
Specifics about me. Middle aged white woman. Single, no kids. Cat. Moderate income; I work in nonprofit, so "director" doesn't mean all that much. I own my home. I have a car. I don't have many social supports here to do things for me after I leave. I'll likely need to fly back and forth a couple of times at the very least. I have a room that doesn't currently have flooring, just subfloor. I had planned to install hardwoods, but if I get this job, I think I'll opt for a quick carpeting fix.
On the one hand, my question is super broad, “What do I need to do to get this accomplished?”
However, I highly suspect that there are many physical and cultural differences that I do not remember. I am currently in the southeast, and haven't lived in Michigan since the late 1980s. I visit a lot because my family is in the state, but I don’t know Ann Arbor at all, other than it’s expensive in the housing realm. I might need to live elsewhere. But buy vs. rent? Preliminary searching makes it seem like buying is going to be both cheaper and nicer stock. I don’t know neighborhoods, I don’t know how far cities are from each other, I don’t know traffic, and I don’t know what I don’t know.
What I guess I’m getting at is that I don’t want to move somewhere and unthinkingly get, for example, a house without a garage. I don’t need one where I am now. I would want one in a snowy climate. What are all the other things that I don’t remember or that might not occur to me? What expenses would I have up there that I don’t have here?
Sorry about the rambling; I had a medical procedure today and am under the influence of hydrocodone.
You are right that rents are high here. It's a very competitive real estate market and depending on what kind of offer you get and your preferences you might want to look at buying in Ypsilanti or getting a condo. I would rent for a year and get to know the area before deciding on a neighborhood. Our winters are sloppy - not necessarily a lot of snow every year but often. Ann Arbor does not do a great job on snow removal so roads are often a sloppy mess in the winter. Culturally it's a pretty nice place to live. Liberal - a bubble really. Great music scene, good restaurants. Nice farmers market. Depending on where on campus you would be working might have some bearing on where you'd want to live. Ann Arbor has decent transit and the U has its own bus system as well.
Feel free to memail me - can tell you more and if you move we can set up a meet-up. Small group of mefites in the area and it would give us a good excuse to get together.
posted by leslies at 7:17 PM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
Feel free to memail me - can tell you more and if you move we can set up a meet-up. Small group of mefites in the area and it would give us a good excuse to get together.
posted by leslies at 7:17 PM on July 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
I live in Ann Arbor. The housing situation here is pretty nuts, especially this time of year. Houses sell the day they're listed for more than the asking price, especially this time of year when lots of academics are moving in. Since you've got time constraints, I'd suggest renting for the first year, but that isn't going to be easy either. This is prime student move-in time.
I've lived here with and without a garage. I love having a garage, but it's definitely doable to live without one. Lots of people manage without. For me, one of the hardest things to get used to was how overcast it is. I didn't think I'd notice, but I definitely did. Culturally, Ann Arbor is a very liberal city.
If you want to live outside of town to save money, I'd look into Saline or Plymouth over Ypsi.
Feel free to memail me.
posted by FencingGal at 7:22 PM on July 16, 2016
I've lived here with and without a garage. I love having a garage, but it's definitely doable to live without one. Lots of people manage without. For me, one of the hardest things to get used to was how overcast it is. I didn't think I'd notice, but I definitely did. Culturally, Ann Arbor is a very liberal city.
If you want to live outside of town to save money, I'd look into Saline or Plymouth over Ypsi.
Feel free to memail me.
posted by FencingGal at 7:22 PM on July 16, 2016
Rent or Airbnb until you find a neighborhood to buy in. Don't stress. Ann Arbor is great.
posted by k8t at 8:15 PM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by k8t at 8:15 PM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Rent until you figure out where would be best to live. This will be different depending on which campus the job is on -- North, Main, or Medical -- and where you want to shop. There's decent bus service in A2 and at the U, but it falls off rapidly once past the city limits (to be fair, so does the population density).
Dexter is closer to A2 than Plymouth, less expensive, and I think the traffic would be better. Saline is iffy -- it's a good place to live, but there's a lot of people doing the live-in-Saline/work-at-the-U thing, so traffic is a mess (by A2 standards, maybe not by yours), and it's not really that much less expensive than A2. (I live in Chelsea, MrR works in Dexter. We have neighbors who work at the U, so it's certainly doable.)
posted by jlkr at 8:34 PM on July 16, 2016
Dexter is closer to A2 than Plymouth, less expensive, and I think the traffic would be better. Saline is iffy -- it's a good place to live, but there's a lot of people doing the live-in-Saline/work-at-the-U thing, so traffic is a mess (by A2 standards, maybe not by yours), and it's not really that much less expensive than A2. (I live in Chelsea, MrR works in Dexter. We have neighbors who work at the U, so it's certainly doable.)
posted by jlkr at 8:34 PM on July 16, 2016
As someone on your own, I suspect you'd be much happier living in A^2 proper than in one of the outlying cities. The socioeconomics vary, but it all turns pretty fast into detached-housing non-walkable barely-transitable suburban isolation. The kind of setup that may work for families where the heart of the social life is in the living room, but is a lot less satisfying for folks who have to go out the door to engage with the world.
posted by praemunire at 10:26 PM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 10:26 PM on July 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Finding a rental space in July for fall start if your housing overlaps at all with students is going to be very difficult. Housing that students might want usually has leases signed in the spring (March or earlier) for fall rent. I moved there for a post doc several years ago, started looking in July, and regretted that decision.
That having been said, renting is still probably a good idea, because then you will have time to figure out where you actually want to live. It might be worth finding out if the group you will join has any housing assistance available, e.g. Visitor apartment or such, so you can have a little time to find a space not right with the fall housing crunch.
posted by nat at 3:49 AM on July 17, 2016
That having been said, renting is still probably a good idea, because then you will have time to figure out where you actually want to live. It might be worth finding out if the group you will join has any housing assistance available, e.g. Visitor apartment or such, so you can have a little time to find a space not right with the fall housing crunch.
posted by nat at 3:49 AM on July 17, 2016
I've been in the AA area most of my life, currently I'm living about 18 miles away (close to Hell, but that's another story). There is a significant difference in housing costs when you compare AA to surrounding small towns, and, as mentioned, also a loss of transportation/social options once you leave AA/Ypsilanti proper.
Ypsilanti is an interesting area, with pockets of pretty heavy poverty and sections of really neat neighborhoods, it's worth checking out.
Traffic around AA is not bad, for the most part. I would avoid any commute that puts you on US 23 during the typical rush hour, other than that the drive is typically easy without awful congestion.
You mentioned differences between the southeast and AA... Picture Ann Arbor as a typical University Town... They are pretty similar no matter where they are located. It often makes the lists of "best places to live", there are a lot of cultural activities, good eating, we're close to Detroit which offers some interesting stuff as well (theaters, museums, sports, casinos, markets, etc)... but, probably not THAT different from what you are used to. If you are an outdoor type, there's a lot to do around here, nice parks, biking, trails, lakes, river.
Expenses you might not have where you are include increased heating costs and, perhaps, making sure your car is winter friendly (all wheel drive cars are pretty common here, but, honestly, for 95 percent of the bad weather, front wheel drive works just fine).
Honestly, this isn't a move to a strange land, it may be simpler than you're imagining.
Good luck with the job prospect.
And, I'm also open to further contact if you have questions.
posted by HuronBob at 3:50 AM on July 17, 2016
Ypsilanti is an interesting area, with pockets of pretty heavy poverty and sections of really neat neighborhoods, it's worth checking out.
Traffic around AA is not bad, for the most part. I would avoid any commute that puts you on US 23 during the typical rush hour, other than that the drive is typically easy without awful congestion.
You mentioned differences between the southeast and AA... Picture Ann Arbor as a typical University Town... They are pretty similar no matter where they are located. It often makes the lists of "best places to live", there are a lot of cultural activities, good eating, we're close to Detroit which offers some interesting stuff as well (theaters, museums, sports, casinos, markets, etc)... but, probably not THAT different from what you are used to. If you are an outdoor type, there's a lot to do around here, nice parks, biking, trails, lakes, river.
Expenses you might not have where you are include increased heating costs and, perhaps, making sure your car is winter friendly (all wheel drive cars are pretty common here, but, honestly, for 95 percent of the bad weather, front wheel drive works just fine).
Honestly, this isn't a move to a strange land, it may be simpler than you're imagining.
Good luck with the job prospect.
And, I'm also open to further contact if you have questions.
posted by HuronBob at 3:50 AM on July 17, 2016
So as you may surmise from the responses so far, life in Ann Arbor is driven by the university and its calendar - so this includes when to look for housing, where to look, and even paying close attention to the football schedule (so you're not caught on the wrong side of town when major roads are turned one-way for the departing football traffic from a home game).
I second all the others suggesting renting for a year first so you get a sense of what neighborhoods will work for your commute and lifestyle. By the way, when you get to the negotiation stage, ask about on-campus parking, whether you'll have access to a parking lot near your office or you'll have to park in one of the commuter parking lots and take a campus bus from there to your actual building. If the latter, living near an AATA line that stops near your building could be a plus.
There are landlords in AA who favor renting to non-students, and they tend to run on a different cycle from student rentals. These are likely to be in neighborhoods outside the typical student areas but still convenient to campus. Once you have the offer ask your contacts at the university for help finding housing - maybe somebody might have a line on rentals that are only available through word-of-mouth (yes, they do exist, townies tend to know about them).
posted by research monkey at 6:32 AM on July 17, 2016
I second all the others suggesting renting for a year first so you get a sense of what neighborhoods will work for your commute and lifestyle. By the way, when you get to the negotiation stage, ask about on-campus parking, whether you'll have access to a parking lot near your office or you'll have to park in one of the commuter parking lots and take a campus bus from there to your actual building. If the latter, living near an AATA line that stops near your building could be a plus.
There are landlords in AA who favor renting to non-students, and they tend to run on a different cycle from student rentals. These are likely to be in neighborhoods outside the typical student areas but still convenient to campus. Once you have the offer ask your contacts at the university for help finding housing - maybe somebody might have a line on rentals that are only available through word-of-mouth (yes, they do exist, townies tend to know about them).
posted by research monkey at 6:32 AM on July 17, 2016
The OP memailed me and asked me to share the following with the community:
Hi! I am the Ann Arbor possible mover. A lot of the responses are great and addressing the specifics I need about housing and Ann Arbor.
Would you be willing to update the question and thank people and see if anyone can help me come up with a logistics plan of selling my house and moving? One complication is that it's kind of a "just me" situation on the ground here.
My current plan would be to get up there with my cat and car and move a small amount of my furniture, carry on with two residences for a while (I can swing that), and sell the other stuff I am leaving here in a big weekend "estate sale" type of deal. I could even maybe hire someone to do that.
Thanks!
posted by HuronBob at 7:08 AM on July 17, 2016
Hi! I am the Ann Arbor possible mover. A lot of the responses are great and addressing the specifics I need about housing and Ann Arbor.
Would you be willing to update the question and thank people and see if anyone can help me come up with a logistics plan of selling my house and moving? One complication is that it's kind of a "just me" situation on the ground here.
My current plan would be to get up there with my cat and car and move a small amount of my furniture, carry on with two residences for a while (I can swing that), and sell the other stuff I am leaving here in a big weekend "estate sale" type of deal. I could even maybe hire someone to do that.
Thanks!
posted by HuronBob at 7:08 AM on July 17, 2016
I would think a good place to start is looking for housing here - I could post on NextDoor for you looking for rentals - which is a pretty common word of mouth for non-students. Your future department at the U should be able to do that as well. Will they connect you with any kind of relocation help for housing or logistics? A realtor on your current end should be helpful on selling your current place. Some useful links
Bus routes
Neighborhoods - the Observer will give you a sense of a lot as well - activities, music etc. I live Northwest and like that area a lot. Have lived in other parts of the city and outside of the city in the past. Northeast will be better for you if you are working on North Campus.
The library here is great and a useful resource.
Michigan Flyer - city to airport at a reasonable price
posted by leslies at 11:26 AM on July 17, 2016
Bus routes
Neighborhoods - the Observer will give you a sense of a lot as well - activities, music etc. I live Northwest and like that area a lot. Have lived in other parts of the city and outside of the city in the past. Northeast will be better for you if you are working on North Campus.
The library here is great and a useful resource.
Michigan Flyer - city to airport at a reasonable price
posted by leslies at 11:26 AM on July 17, 2016
You can't start packing until you know whether you're moving, but one thing you can do right away is start to get rid of stuff. Identify things you want to give away or recycle, and do that now.
You might also ask around for a realtor where you are now. A good one can do things such as help you find a contractor for a quick fix on the floors you mentioned.
posted by yarntheory at 5:34 PM on July 17, 2016
You might also ask around for a realtor where you are now. A good one can do things such as help you find a contractor for a quick fix on the floors you mentioned.
posted by yarntheory at 5:34 PM on July 17, 2016
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