Grad student renting advice please (details in post)
Hello friends! I’m a second year graduate student. My first year in Madison, I rented a room in a house on the isthmus (East Side) with one roommate. That has been super chill. The landlord is selling the building. My significant other rented in an apartment near S Park St and had an okay experience the last year, but expressed interest in renting somewhere else. He has a 30 lb dog, a breed that does not show up on any restricted breed lists I’ve seen. We are looking together.
Both of our credit scores and combined gross income meet the application criteria for all the rentals I’ve looked at, but I’m not feeling confident we meet rental history criteria. I’m also inexperienced with actual apartment rentals so wanted to get advice from peers.
Before this year, my s/o lived with family because it made sense because of the tight rental market where he is from and him having a good relationship with his parents. I had one really bad roommate situation with a stranger renting from a small private landlord before my current rental, which didn’t result in any collections/evictions or anything, but possibly would result in a negative verbal landlord reference. Before that, I lived in my undergrad college’s dorms and traveled a bit after graduation.
As an inexperienced renter it’s felt pretty overwhelming looking at apartments. I went to a showing the other day and the leasing agent asked for 10 years rental history! I also can be a little literal-minded so it’s hard for me to gauge which factors an apartment will value most when assessing an application. I would like to feel more confident we meet the full applicant criteria before scheduling viewings or spending money on application fees.
Anyone have any advice/experiences about apartments or rental companies that might be a good fit for this applicant profile? Or just wisdom about applying? Our budget is around $1500 or so and we are pretty open in terms of area/neighborhood. Thank you <3