My daughter is moving to Austin, Texas, for her graduate studies at UT. While she seems to be perfectly okay with her plans, I am little worried! My queries are:
Unlike the common perception, I find the rent for one bedroom independent apartment, quite high. The budget is $750 per month, including utilities. Is it possible? My search so far has indicated a much higher figure. Request some specific inputs from parents living in Austin.
What would be the reasonable budget per month? For a girl from a middle income family.
She is planning to take her car to Austin. Is it a good decision? Or, she sells her car and look for a new purchase in Austin?
Looking forward to some clarity in my thought process. Will appreciate help from other parent.
Does she get any money from the school since she is doing graduate studies?
The places closer to the universities are always more expensive. Driving vs staying close is usually a trade off. Living alone will always be more expensive.
I’ve lived in the Austin area for over 30 years; I don’t know what “common perception” you are referring to, but housing costs in Austin are high (I live in a suburb about 15 miles away). A $750/month budget for a single apartment, including utilities, may not exist – or, if it does, it’s in a not-so-great part of town. You can use websites like Zillow or Trulia to search for apartments based on budget, location, etc. Not sure if there’s also a field to search for “utilities included”. My bet is you might get water and gas paid, but not electricity – and in Austin, electric bills can be high due to A/C usage, not just in summer but year-round. As an example, my DS1 has a one-bedroom apartment in Georgetown, which is 30 minutes north of Austin, and his rent is $900/month and includes NO utilities.
She will need a car; the public transportation systems in Austin are hit-and-miss, depending on where you live.
As the previous poster said, this will depend a lot of whether she gets any money from UT. She might also want to ask the graduate school if they have any recommendations on housing.
Many grad students live in apartments off Far West Blvd (cheaper than most in the West Campus/Hyde Park areas) and take the UT shuttle to campus. She’ll still need a car, though. Rents aren’t going to be $750 unless she has a roommate.
it will definitely save money to just drive her car to Austin and reregister it there. Hopefully she can bring a friend or sibling and have a fun road trip on the way.
$750 a month doesn’t get you much in the Austin rental market. At least not near UT or close to DT. She will need to either find a roommate or commute a good distance through awful traffic. My S lives in Austin. His first apartment, a 2 bedroom he shared with a roommate, was $2150. It was in the trendy SoCo area. He wanted his own place and found a small one bedroom farther out in the Sunset Valley area for $950 (no utilities included). When I lived in Austin in the 80s, my share of a tiny 2 bedroom condo close to campus was $650.
Not going to happen with $750 all utilities included. I would start to look for a room to rent if that is her budget and she has to stick to that. Keep the car. It’s an absolute necessity here.
My 23 yo niece moved to Austin in January. She didn’t want to have a roommate. She worked with a realtor and started looking at places starting around 800 but the decent places started at around 1000. She found a place with everything included, including internet and basic cable for 1200. The building is older but they just redid all the apartments so everything inside is new. It’s close to the lake but east of 35 which isn’t as cool as SOCO yet but it’s coming. Downtown, UT are very close, but still keep the car! Hope your daughter loves Austin!
She won’t need a car if she lives in the Riverside area near pleasant valley, where many, many students live. There is an HEB grocery store with in walking distance, and the buses run regularly. It is on the UT shuttle route, too. $750 will get you nothing - unless you are sharing a room with another student in a shared apartment - as in 4 students In a 2-bedroom apartment.
I lived in the Riverside area with no car back in the day. It’s doable.
Austin is one of the higher rent cities in Texas. She will need a roommate, or maybe she can find a studio somewhere. Does UT have graduate student housing/dorms?
@Nrdsb4 - I lived off Riverside my first year in Austin. That area has really changed. Back in my day it was the cheap rent area!
@basil1 - If your niece is single, my sweet, handsome, and gainfully employed 27 year old S really needs a GF. Maybe we can start a CC match making service.
@Overtheedge Actually, she’s single and trying to meet people. She graduated in 2015 from Univ. Oklahoma and grew up in Dallas area but oddly none of her close friends ended up in Austin so she hasn’t met many people yet. I think a CC match service is a great idea…we just have to pretend we’re not meddling
Thanks. Every input I got here is valuable and to an extent made me rerthink about how I should assist my daughter. Yes, she will take the car as getting an apartment near the campus, within her budget, seems to be an unrealistic expectation. Since she will be more comfortable staying all by herself, I have advised her to increase the budget to $900 and see if she can get a place within 15 minutes drive from the campus. Any help? My wife and I will join her while she drives down to Austin. Sometime during the last week of July. Hopefully, by then, she will get a place!
