Finding an apartment in Madison                                                                                   Summer 2005

We arrived in Madison on June 1 and immediately went into our "car-buying" and "apartment-searching" mode. 

Although we lease a car in Europe, this option doesn't really exist in the US.  Instead we've always bought a car and then sold it after 5 months or so.  There were plenty of adventures associated with buying a used 2002 Camry (our "standard" used car) this summer -- too many to write about here, but I'll share one bit.  This time around the salesman offered to look up the Kelly Blue Book value of the Camry we were looking at -- always useful information.  But he cheated!  Besides picking the price location as California (rather than Wisconsin where the same car is about $500 cheaper), he also added equipment that the car didn't actually have!  We noticed the State change but not the fact that we didn't have all of the listed equipment.  As always, the moral is: buyer beware! 

As for a nice furnished apartment, it seemed there weren't any.  There were a couple listed in the paper and on the Internet, but these were intended as student housing.  I looked into renting furniture, since there were plenty of unfurnished apartments available, but eventually we found the Renter's Magazine, a listing of apartments for rent in the greater Madison area.  Several large complexes offered "executive apartments" on short-term (3-month or less) leases.  They would rent furniture for us, at half the cost that we'd pay as individuals.   Marriott, the hotel company, also provides a similar service in Madison. 

Although we had hoped to live downtown near the Capitol and campus, that didn't seem to be an option.  So we looked at several "executive" options on the outskirts of town and rented a nice two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in the complex pictured above.

In many ways, the location just south of Madison in Verona was perfect.  My former roommate Judy, and her husband Al live in Verona, and my other former roommate, Margie lives less than 5 minutes away.  That made for easy get-togethers, no planning required.  And Margie retired this summer, so we had her nearby, ready to play.

Moreover, two golf courses and some great practice areas were just five minutes away.

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