To move or not to move
Posted: September 12, 2012 | Author: bogofdebt | Filed under: advice, finances, house, rental house | Tags: advice, lists, moving, renting |37 CommentsUgh, with all the house issues (falling kitchen ceiling anyone?) I’m still debating on whether to move when our lease is up. There are several pros to moving and there are several pros to staying. In the beginning the plan was to stay for at least two years-if not more. And then we talked about marriage and it became a stay here until the lease is up after we get married and then move to a bigger place—so that way I don’t have to move for a while and if we wanted to have a start a family, we’d be in the house we wanted to be in. So I figured I’d make a list and see what other people might think.
Pros to staying:
Rent is fairly cheap-I would get to save more for all funds and pay off more debt
Close to work-this is important with our car situation never being completely stable.
We know the utilities for winter and summer-excellent for future budgeting
Could start saving up for furniture/curtains/house stuff we would like (right now we make do with what we have)
Cons to staying:
House is falling down around us.
Shady landlords who do not always answer complaints (valid ones in my opinion like the fact that I don’t have a back light at all or the ceiling is caving in or that I have a leak in my kitchen sink. They swear I don’t but we’ve emptied the bucket under there a few times. And by bucket I mean it’s one of the kitty litter containers I’m reusing)
Stress about the house and having to pay the landlords money.
Might have our heat/ac break a few more times.
Pros to leaving:
Get a better house –bigger (slightly) and not falling down around us.
Wouldn’t have to move for a while
Mental health is important!
Cons to leaving:
Not entirely sure if there will be a house we both want to move into (and yes house, I dislike apartments) when our lease is up and I have to give 30 days’ notice that we will be ending the lease.
Bigger place would come with a bigger rent so less money and we’d most likely have to pay a pet deposit again.
Not a lot of places around here really let you have animals and my cat is part of our family.
Would not be able to save up for new stuff (or new to us) as fast as we would like-it’d be put of until well past the wedding.
Really it’s a draw-well, kind of. I hate this house with a passion but could put up with it for another year after our lease is up. I wouldn’t like it but if I reminded myself why we’re doing it (wedding, debt, savings) I’d be okay with it. And I know we could just move into a 1 bedroom place if need be, but I dislike moving (before I was 16 I’d changed counties/states/schools a total of 18 times just because my dad liked to move around) and the next time I move, I really want to be able to stay for a bit. This means thinking ahead to potential family starting.
Part of it will be finding the right fit for us at the right time. It sucks looking in the paper now because they have a lot of what we’re looking for in a lower price range than our maximum amount we’re willing to spend. (did you follow that last sentence?) So I stay away from the paper but once in a while, we’ll see a house for rent and it looks good from the outside so I still see them.
Any thoughts on this?
bogofdebt 
Hmmm this is definitely a tough decision. I would probably just look around to see what the prices are for other places, and then decide from there. If the price is just a little higher, then I definitely think that justifies your sanity.
The sanity factor is a big thing-I don’t like coming home and wondering if my ceiling fell while I was away!
I think maybe you should look around at what’s available, if you find an absolutely perfect place, consider moving, if not, stay where you are.
That’s what we’re leaning towards right now. It has to be right for us to move.
I’d go with moving. I stayed in a place far longer than I should have that made me miserable. It was not worth it.
See? It’s that sanity thing again! That’s what is making staying harder than it is.
Moving is a HUGE pain in the butt, especially if we’re talking about 1 year. IMO the stress involved with packing everything up and moving would probably outweigh dealing with it for another year. It’s not your problem to deal with long term. Why is there stress about owing the landlords money?? Document every little problem, with pictures and a witness in case they every tried to come and say something was your fault, or look for money. If you think you can deal for a year I’d stay to continue with the debt/savings rather than re-starting the whole budgeting process again!..unless you move somewhere that you’ll stay >1 year and would be happier!
Mostly it’s I don’t want to pay them money because it is a crappy situation. And my inital thought is “stay for 1 more year and deal with it after that”. Unless, like you said, I find an awesome house I’m not going to want to move from at all–then it might be vastly different. And I’m not really worried about them claiming something is our fault-I just dislike the fact it takes them so long to fix something that it makes it much worse.
I know it’s a tough decision. This is the second time I’ve quoted oprah in my comments this week, but I love what she says in that “your house should rise up to meet you.” It’s your safe haven. Your comfortable space. If it makes you miserable, is it worth it?
That’s the question. Of course, I could end up with even shadier landlords….as horrible as that could be. Next month we start “looking” and I’ll have a answer as to what we’re doing. I’m hoping we find the “house”.
Hey there, new to your page and loving it! As far as being able to save for nicer things, some of your wishes may be granted as wedding gifts. Moving is hard because, you almost have to put in notice hoping that you will find the perfect alternative in the next 30 days. I for one would stay put to avoid additional costs if you can cope.with the maintenance issues. Time to.enlist the help.of some handy friends? Good Luck!
Thanks so much for visiting my blog 🙂
And yes-that’s the issue is the putting in notice and maybe not finding something. So we’ll look starting next month and see what we can find (if we decided to move)
For the maintenance, the issue is really the ceiling falling. They need to replace the roof/ceiling but just keep doing patch jobs.
It’s most definitely about priorities – eventually you’ll most definitely move into the house of your dreams;-)))
I’d move. Unless your rent is free. Then deal with it.
Maybe my landlord will let us live here free! (Okay that’s propably super wishful thinking….)
I would look around when it gets closer to the end of your lease, probably about two months prior to it ending. See if you can find something that you like that is similar to the price you are paying now. You never know, you might find an awesome deal.
That’s what we’re hoping for-we start looking in about 2 weeks and we’re hoping we get a really awesome deal.
I think you should move. I know you hate moving (and for good reason, 18 times is insane) but if you are honestly worried about the roof falling in on you it’s not worth another year. Just go find a place that you can actually ENJOY coming home to. Once you are married you can start looking elsewhere.
That was the seconday plan and now it’s looking like we might go through with this. Unless of course nothing is avalible.
I would leave. You can’t put a price on your sanity or emotional well-being.
That seems to be the consensus here. Well and at home. So mainly everywhere 🙂
What is causing the ceiling to cave? When I lived in an apartment, I had a pipe in my ceiling burst. They fixed it, but then the mold started and my wife got sick. We moved out that weekend. Some things are annoyances and some things are hazards. I wouldn’t mess around with a hazard.
Honestly I am not sure but there are several patches in various rooms. There are also several other cracks forming–what happened with the ceiling falling down is the crack got bigger and then started to form a bubble type thing that got bigger as the days went on. Eventually it just caved it-no water fell from it just a lot of plaster and yucky ceiling dust.
Can you do a month to month lease in case the landlord starts sucking really bad?
I hadn’t thought about a month to month. Or even a 6 month lease-oh scratch that. I’d be moving right around the time I was getting married lol. Month to month might work though!
It’s really hard to say since you haven’t looked yet. You need to get out there and go to open houses with an open mind. You’re not definitely moving, but you’re definitely considering, so give option B a fair chance. You say you hate your house with a passion…that can’t be good for a girl’s mentality!
It’s probably not good for me ;). And yes, I think we’re going to at least look and go into it with an open mind. Because we just might find that awesome house that isn’t too expensive.
thats tough. moving would be nice, but saving a bit more would also be nice. keep in mind that just because you move to a house doesn’t mean there won’t be things that fall apart all around you too. maybe that will help
Oh I’m in a rental house now too it’s just tiny like an apartment 🙂 . And I did think that we could end up with an even worse landlord if we moved or we could land a super awesome one! (that didn’t help either lol)
You have to be in a place that you love and that feels like home to you but also doesn’t stress you out. You will make the right decision, trust yourself. Cheers Mr.CBB
Thanks for the vote of confidence Mr. CBB. I do want a “home” and not just a house.
If you decide to wait a while, I would suggest also waiting to purchase items for a future home. A couple of months before we decided to buy our first house, I purchased some things and now I wished that I hadn’t. The new stuff is just not going to go with our new house at all, if I’d have waited, we wouldn’t have to turn around and replace stuff. 😦
Good luck either way you go. 🙂
Thanks Jen. I think we are going to wait on the new stuff. Orignally we wanted to buy it before leaving this house, but we’re going to wait. We are still going to look at some houses in the next few weeks and we’ll see if we move.
If it’s driving you crazy that much, you should look for another place ASAP. Then, once you have a better idea of what’s out there, you can make a more informed decision. Also, you didn’t explain why you hate apartments but surely they can’t be worse than a house where the roof is caving in…?
Around here, everything is geared towards old people apartments, low income apatments or students. There is 1 or 2 that I know of by they are by the fertlizer plant. An apartment could be dealt with if it was situated correctly and priced decently. I just really prefer a house (I don’t like to deal with neighbors all that often)
[…] And sadly, we have basically made up our minds to stay where we are for a year (read about the dilemma here). There’s a bunch of stuff that’s going on (that I don’t want to get into on a blog where […]
You need to search the net for all clauses and acts regarding your tenancy for your durastriction. I have just done that myself for our rental house and found out we are entitled to rent reduction due to our house being partialy unhabitiable. And our landlord has also broken an act by knowingly concealed mouldy areas. It carries a fine