Weeze

How difficult is it to rent a blinking house? We started trying 4 weeks ago. 1st one, someone bought. Bugger. Second one, turned out to be allergic to dogs. Bugger. Third one, no response yet.
Did anyone else have trouble when they first moved over here or are we just being really unlucky. Thankfully we have accomodation until Nov, but after that, I'm looking for a spare room

cranston

we had a huge choice when we first moved. Keep at it - good luck.

Whereabouts in H-town are you?

Poppy girl

Try Craigslist but be careful there are a few scams on that!

Brat1

Sorry you're having problems. We moved here in February this year and, I know we're in totally different parts of the country, but we had a realtor work for us to find us a rental. She was great, and because we had to find a rental while we were back in the UK, she did all the leg work here, took extra photos of the ones we shortlisted etc. We did however, have trouble finding a lot of rentals who would accept a dog, and once we did, we then had problems finding someone who would give us renters insurance with the dog on the policy, but we eventually got that through a local insurance agent here in the town.

Keep at it. We used a couple of realtors websites and asked for updates of any rentals that came on the market. I hope you manage to find somewhere suitable, and are settling in ok.

Weeze

Thanks guys. We have a realitor that OHs company have provided for us and they seem good. There has been a big pool of us over over in the last few months and they have been the realitors for everyone. There isn't much on the market at the moment, partly because we want a pool and some grass and secondly because we moved just after term started so lots went in the few weeks before our move. We have an automatic notification set up with the Houston properties search so as soon as a new one comes up, we see it straight away. I didn't realise how expensive the rental market is here. I also didn't realise that some of the property discriptions lie. They say it is 3 bedrooms, study, playroom etc, then you get to them and they have counted the rooms twice and sometimes 3 times. Some of them just don't bother saying study/bedroom, they just list them as if separate rooms. Very cheeky.
Hopefully it'll be 3rd time lucky. I'm getting fed up with viewing properties!
The 2nd one that fell through did say no pets, but our realitor checked with theirs and was told that it didn't mean no pets as it was tiled floors so just to view it and if we liked it we could then discuss the pets deposit etc. Then a week after our offer, we found out about the allergies. It has bee particularly unfortunate that the first 2 landlords were out of the country so it took a week after each offer for us to get rejected. That wasted loads of time.
Cranston - we are in Galleria at the moment and are looking at Katy, Energy corridor, memorial, lakes on E etc.
On the plus side, my container arrived early and cleared customs so at least I know everything is here, I just can't put it anywhere!

Weeze

Yeah!!!!!!!
After my moan of 4 weeks and no house, we have just received an email to say we got the 3rd one! Thank god for that. It was getting like being picked for sports at school. Gradually all the other expats were finding their houses, getting their shipments, moving in and there we were left on the sidelines like the fat kid.

meauxna

Congratulations.. I almost felt homeless alongside you from your great description!

Bob

It's a bit of a mare, more so during the end of summer around here as landlords don't want people moving out during winter points.

We were going for another apartment, and I looked through loads of places, most were shit, a couple of nice ones but weren't very economical, they usually didn't include rubbish pick up or snow removal or not much parking kind of issues.

We just moved into a place that we checked out in the middle, bit of a faff, but got there in the end.

When we moved down to Mass from Maine, we had arranged to view about 6 places in a day and signed the lease on the first place we saw at the end of the day in the end. Would have been nice to have had more time to search but company wasn't going to put us up in a hotel for a week and I didn't fancy the 4.5hr one way commute

Weeze

Glad you found somewhere Bob. Snow removal not such an issue for us but I know what you mean. The prices they are charging and then you realise that for some they don't include anything like yard or pool maintenance. Our toddler has had to put up with whole days of viewing houses. I think we will all be glad to have a family weekend instead. I know now all the fun of sorting out utilities starts, but at least we have somewhere!

cranston

har.com is a great resource.

Brat1

Great news Weeze. Glad you've got somewhere. Most of our utilities were set up pretty easily, but the only problem we had was that we couldn't get an account with an oil company because of our lack of credit rating, so we have had to pay cash on delivery since we got here. Everything else was straightforward.

Welcome to America

Weeze

Thanks Brat! We had the excitement last night of getting a cashiers check for the deposit. Thankfully Abbey have now given us our money. OH looked delighted last night when I suggested we could go furniture shopping. He did cheer up when I told him about the place I saw advertised - parrots flying around, pirates to greet you, childrens play area, waterfalls. Doesn't it sound fabulously horrendous!

scrubbedexpat097

You must be talking about Gallery Furniture The owner "Matress Mac" is a real character! He donates to all kinds of charities and is always very very generous at Christmas time giving furniture to families that really are in need, it is quite a tradition now.

It is quite an experience to go to one of his stores...good luck

Mummy in the foothills

They sell furniture in Disneyland now? Yo Ho Ho the pirates life for me. We got suck on the pirates of the Caribbean ride once.

Oh congrats on the house finally.

cranston

Yeah, I have seen his TV ads...they are certainly memorable.