Monday, February 26, 2007
frustration, thy name is housing
I'm having some difficulty identifying a new place to live. This wouldn't be a source of much stress if not for the stipulation in my current lease that I give 30 days' written notice of my intent to vacate. I'm afraid of giving notice and then not having a place to live, or worse, settling on a new place that doesn't meet my admittedly high standards.
I've been all over Craig's List and the pickings are slim. I paid my $50 for a printout from REDI. Not much quality there either. I stopped by Apartment Locators and got only one hit in my price range and very broad geographic range. Hillary walked all up and down Armory Park with me yesterday and what was there was either really run down or way too big for my needs.
So I'm left with some not very appealing options: stay put and sign another 8 month lease here (the shortest available nowadays - they used to offer six-monthers, but no more), give my written notice on Thursday and pray real hard, or decide to try out the whole homeless thing while saving enough for a down payment on a house. Since that last option really isn't one, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Actually, a viable third option would be to give notice that I will be going to a month-to-month lease (and paying $150 more per month to do so, which would be good motivation) and ease some of the front-end pressure off me.
I appreciate all the help and thoughtful suggestions I've received from my friends and faithful readers. Please keep passing your leads my way. I'm sure something will turn up eventually.
Update (9:48 PM): About a half hour after I posted this, I received a call back from a landlord who has a two-bedroom house near Fifth and Columbus that I'd driven past over the weekend. I'm going to check it out tomorrow. If the inside is as promising as the outside, I may jump at the opportunity (she has a couple who is also interested, but they have big dogs and she doesn't really want dogs after previous tenants' dogs). It's at the very upper end of my price range, but would still be a marginally smaller percentage of my monthly income than my current place was when I was working for the Center Against Sexual Assault. Stay tuned...
I've been all over Craig's List and the pickings are slim. I paid my $50 for a printout from REDI. Not much quality there either. I stopped by Apartment Locators and got only one hit in my price range and very broad geographic range. Hillary walked all up and down Armory Park with me yesterday and what was there was either really run down or way too big for my needs.
So I'm left with some not very appealing options: stay put and sign another 8 month lease here (the shortest available nowadays - they used to offer six-monthers, but no more), give my written notice on Thursday and pray real hard, or decide to try out the whole homeless thing while saving enough for a down payment on a house. Since that last option really isn't one, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Actually, a viable third option would be to give notice that I will be going to a month-to-month lease (and paying $150 more per month to do so, which would be good motivation) and ease some of the front-end pressure off me.
I appreciate all the help and thoughtful suggestions I've received from my friends and faithful readers. Please keep passing your leads my way. I'm sure something will turn up eventually.
Update (9:48 PM): About a half hour after I posted this, I received a call back from a landlord who has a two-bedroom house near Fifth and Columbus that I'd driven past over the weekend. I'm going to check it out tomorrow. If the inside is as promising as the outside, I may jump at the opportunity (she has a couple who is also interested, but they have big dogs and she doesn't really want dogs after previous tenants' dogs). It's at the very upper end of my price range, but would still be a marginally smaller percentage of my monthly income than my current place was when I was working for the Center Against Sexual Assault. Stay tuned...
Labels: fear, housing, personal, rent
