How do you go about finding an apartment in clagary?

Question

hey im moving to calgary in 4 weeks how does one find an aprtment. i need one that i could have a turtle in and one thats walking distance to stores and stuff seeing i dont drive.. im from a small place in saskatchewan. and no nothing about city life so if you could help me it would be rad.

Answer 1

Ash79 gave a well informed answer, so I'm just going to add further details about WHERE you might like to live:

Definitely stay within the downtown core area - those neighbourhoods listed are excellent, depending on what you want.   17th Ave is a great place to live near or on, there is an abundance of shops, pubs, restaurants that attract people from all over the city.  As a newcomer I'm sure you'll want to get out and meet new people, 17th is great for the social life.  The areas along 17th were already mentioned (Lower Mt. Royal, Connaught, Sunalta) and really the best parts would be from about 15th street to 3rd street SW anywhere along or near 17th Ave.

Kensington is great too, it's more of a trendier area so the people that tend to live around there are 25+, there are lots of shops (grocery and everything else), restaurants, pubs, to keep people coming to the area and its location along the river offers many great walking paths, the LRT also runs through the area and you are literally across the street from downtown so if you plan to work downtown this would be a great area (17th Ave is great for downtown work too though).

Just one word of advice for rentals - do not rent from Boardwalk properties, they do not take care of their tenants let alone the properties, you would be better to look for buildings managed by other companies.  Other than that, Ash79 had a great idea, just walk and call the numbers from your cell as you find something you might like.

Good luck and hope you enjoy Calgary!!

Answer 2

You can google rental sites but the way I found my first apartment was to walk around an area I liked with my cell phone. Many places advertise outside of their buildings with a phone number you can call. I would call as I walked by.

If you don't drive, make sure you chose to live somewhere close to the LRT line, or downtown. The beltline is a nice area to live for young people and it is near everything where you wont need a car. Neighbouhoods like: Connaught, Mission, Sunalta, Victoria Park, Cliff Bungalow, Lower Mount Royal or Kensington.