Madison Rentals: What 217 Reviews Say About Location

Rate My Rental holds 217 reviews across 57 Madison rental properties. 115 of those include written comments. Madison's corpus is unlike most cities on the site: UW–Madison residence halls account for 134 of the 217 reviews, so what you're reading is largely students describing where the university put them, alongside a smaller set of off-campus renters describing places they chose. Reading all 115 turns up one topic that dominates everything else — and a split in what that topic means. What Madison renters write about Counting how often each theme appears across the 115 written reviews: | Topic | Reviews mentioning it | Share | |---|---:|---:| | Location or distance | 35 | 30% | | Social scene or noise | 27 | 23% | | Room size or layout | 15 | 13% | | Cleanliness or bathrooms | 14 | 12% | | Management or landlord | 11 | 10% | | Heat, water or insulation | 8 | 7% | | Maintenance or repairs | 8 | 7% | | Price or value | 7 | 6% | | Laundry | 6 | 5% | | Pests | 2 | 2% | Location is the most-discussed topic in Madison by a wide margin, and location scores have the widest spread of any category — from 4.31 down to 0.5. But "good location" turns out to mean two opposite things depending on who is writing. Freshmen trade the building for the location The clearest case in the data is dwell The Statesider Apartments. It has 17 reviews, a 1.57 on property details and a 1.41 on management — the lowest management score in Madison. Its overall rating is 2.35. One review: This dorm…