<p>My daughter will be attending Tufts University in the Fall. We have been visiting this week in a fairly feeble attempt to try and find an apartment for her. It is May, and apparently housing placement has been established months ago. She went to the housing office, and applied for grad housing, but there are only 34 spots (and 1500 grad students). There are NO signs out anywhere showing that there are rentals available, very little up on Craigslist for available apartments, and Tufts is generally not helpful at all (although they seem to be great in every other area, just not housing). </p>
<p>So, when you’re from out of town, and you’ve tried online sources, and you’ve made calls, and you’ve contacted Tufts student housing, and you come up dry – what to do? Is there some underground source at Tufts that we just don’t know about? It’s just wild to come here and feel like ALL of the housing is already taken four months before Fall semester. I can’t imagine what we should be doing to find appropriate housing and/or roommates when there’s literally zero help from the school. </p>
<p>I just spent a little time on Craigslist and I looked in Somerville and Arlington and I was amazed at the lack of availability and how high prices are and how many listings are done by brokers - though they may just be salting Craigslist to obscure those rented by owner or groups of kids. I don’t have any good suggestion - just noting that housing in Boston is insane right now.</p>
<p>Most of the Tufts undergrads find their apartments through the TuftsLife and jumpoffcampus websites. Classes are over so many have been rented. There are also some local real estate people who specialize in finding aprartments - although they do charge a fee.</p>
<p>Did you look at Medford listings?
Someway cheaper and usually has availability.
If you find something decent you can advertise for room mates and hopefully other desperate people will show up.
Parts of Medford are “walking distance”, others you need to be in the 94, 96 bus line.
I went through the same and Tufts was not helpful at all for housing.</p>
<p>My daughter was going through this last summer. She was looking for a place for her boyfriend and herself (he’s a Tufts grad student). She ended up finding a summer sublet – there are a lot of them. She shared a house with three other women. Then she had two months when she could really make looking for an apartment her sole focus. She found one in a couple weeks that was affordable and in a decent location for public transportation. She later found out lots of young people do it this way; take a summer sublet as soon as possible and then look for a place for September.</p>
<p>Once they’re set up somewhere for their first year of grad school, then they have the ability to look for something more ideal for the following years.</p>
<p>The sublet idea is a good one. If you get lucky, you may even find one you can rent yourself when the former renter’s lease is up.</p>
<p>@dodgersmom I live near Boston and have used commuter rail. I have also been a grad student a couple of times in my life. When I was a science PhD student, I had weird hours, especially when I had science experiments going. Commuter rail is not so easy in that regard because there are a limited number of trains, and the timing gets sparser after 6pm. Maybe you could live on the line that connect to Porter or Malden stations, but I would not recommend this. She’d be better off driving if her hours are weird. I would first look at living near bus lines, perhaps those that connect to Harvard Station or Alewife station. The buses run much more frequently than the commuter rail.</p>
<p>I agree, the commuter rail is pretty useless off-peak. Also biking is of limited value from December to March. Best to have a car or live near a bus that goes near Tufts, or near a Red Line station in Cambridge/Somerville. Grad students do keep weird hours. Also, commuting in from the Northern or Western suburbs in rush hour is brutal by car. I mentioned Malden because parts of it are pretty nice, near the bus, and not as expensive.</p>
<p>Craigslist is a good place to look for summer sublets. After that my daughter ended up getting a place through a broker that was also listed on Craiglist – it became obvious early that going through a broker was likely to be unavoidable since she didn’t have unlimited time to find a place. The fee wasn’t too bad… I think it was some percentage of one month’s rent – something like 40-50%, I don’t recall exactly – but the rent was pretty reasonable for the Cambridge/Somerville area so it ended up being do-able for her and her boyfriend.</p>
<p>I just sent you an email… but I have an apartment in Medford and am looking for another roommate! Would love to talk further if your daughter has not already found a place.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of housing around there but I think the vast majority of it would involve roommates (a lot of it is three-level houses made into apartments) so I second checking out the roommate/share option on craigslist. That’s not an area with a lot of non-shared sized apartments.</p>
<p>I actually don’t recommend the commuter rail. She could make it work, but there is one line that goes through Porter Square so if she lived on that line, she’d have to take the train to Davis and walk ten minutes out to Tufts. Otherwise, she’d be taking the train to South Station, which is about a 25 minute train ride from Davis Square, or North Station, which would involve a transfer to get to Davis. </p>
<p>I just tried searching “Somerville” in Rooms and Shares on craigslist and got a lot of results. Many of them are decently priced and near Tufts. Here’s the search: [boston</a> rooms & shares classifieds “somerville” - craigslist](<a href=“boston rooms & shares "somerville" - craigslist”>boston rooms & shares "somerville" - craigslist)
You can modify it and try changing the criteria to Medford or Tufts and see what you come up with.</p>
<p>Disagree with dodgersmom re: the commuter rail. Aside from the fact that it’s terrible off-peak (there can be a two-hour gap between trains), it’s really a PITA to get from either North or South Station to the Medford campus. It’s also insanely expensive - it can be upwards of $2,500 a year for 12 monthly passes, even if you aren’t that far out of the city.</p>
<p>Hey, schleppenheimer, your daughter is on the Medford campus, right? </p>
<p>My suggestion would be to get her a car (even a relatively cheap one) and look for house shares in Stoneham, Woburn, or Winchester. Free parking at home, parking on campus, and a very quick commute. Once you’re outside of Medford, Somerville, and Cambridge, renting a house can be very economical. </p>
<p>A quick Craigslist search indicates that there’s some very nice, relatively economical housing options available in Andover. </p>
<p>I will also add that Massachusetts does have a good public transit system, and Tufts is T-accessible (with a 15-minute walk to the station), but Boston is a spoke system: you can get into Boston, but getting in and out is a time-consuming proposition. For example, Watertown isn’t far from Tufts, but most public transit options to/from would be a nightmare, as you have to go into Boston and then back out of Boston.</p>
<p>ariesathena,
why not in Malden, Everett? From the map, they are closer to Medford. They are not good areas? the ones you mentioned are on the north side of Medford, they are better areas?</p>
<p>Riding the rails right now aboard the Fitchburg line! Watertown is very well connected by electric buses to Harvard Station (connect to red line). Watertown has a lot of two family houses and is inhabited by lots of postdocs, medical residents, etc.</p>
<p>fromcalifornia: yes, the areas I mentioned are nicer towns. Malden isn’t bad - but it’s not nice, either. Don’t live in Everett.</p>
<p>The advantage of living in the suburbs - aside from the fact that the towns are nicer, the grocery stores more plentiful (and nicer), and the areas are more safe - is that there’s just more space. You can rent a house in the suburbs, or, for approximately the same money, rent a tiny apartment in the city area. </p>
<p>Stoneham is adjacent to Medford and is a very nice suburb. (It’s not Weston, but it’s nice.) Winchester is very nice and is two towns away; Woburn is a bit more city-like but is only a few miles away. All are accessible by highway or are a straight shot on back roads. I’ve never tried going from Everett to Medford, but it might be more of a pain than it would appear from the mileage. </p>
<p>Car insurance is cheaper in the suburbs (by hundreds of dollars a year). Parking is usually free in the suburbs; it can be costly, or difficult to find, nearer to the city. </p>
<p>A word about the buses: they run more frequently than the commuter rail; however, they run behind. Like, at rush hour, a half-hour behind. (They all pile up behind the lead bus, so it’s not like the 5:30 comes through at 5:50, and the 5:45 comes through at 6:10 - they would all come through at 6:10.) When I was commuting by train and bus, I would wait a half-hour or forty-five minutes at a bus stop for a bus that was supposed to come every twenty minutes. NOT recommended.</p>
<p>If she has a car, the suburbs are fine. If not I’d have a strong recommendation against most of the ones being listed. Watertown is a lovely city. I used to travel from Porter Square to Watertown taking the 71 bus and it takes a while. My guess is that it would take around an hour to get to Tufts from Watertown on the bus. It would be waiting for the bus, taking the bus to Harvard, waiting for the train, taking the train to Davis, and walking 10-15 minutes from Davis to Tufts. I should add that I have no idea what the parking situation is like around the Tufts campus, but there are tons of students that live right in Somerville and Medford. My friends that have gone to Tufts (one had a car with him) also lived in Somerville right by campus.</p>