Matthew and I are ready to get out of our current apartment. We thought we moved into a nice apartment but the renters don't seem to fit the "profile" we had in mind of other renters that we thought would live here. I was okay with the thought of living here for one more year (the inside is nice, we love the kitchen, love the parking garage...) but then we received a notice that our rent would be almost $2000 a month. What!?!? I don't think so. So we decided that we wouldn't renew our lease and find a rental home. The area where we live is a very popular area and it seems like everyone and their mom wants to live here. It has been incredible hard finding a decent rental home.
(Almost everyone we know (except for my parents) are pushing and pushing for us to buy right now. Yes, the market is perfect but we are trying our best to be financially responsible. We want to be 100% debt free, have a 3-6 month emergency fund in place, and have 20% for a down payment. We already have the emergency fund and we will be debt free on June 20, 2012.)
Today we started our serious search. We looked at one today that was completely updated and perfect for us, except it was even more than $2000 and they aren't willing to negotiate since it has only been in the market for 2 days and 5 people have already offered to pay that much. Ugh. Then we decided to look at a house that has been for sale for nearly 2 years. I drive by it almost every single day and I've always wanted to look at it. We were hoping the couple would be willing to rent for a year but an older couple lives there and they have several rentals that they're trying to sell and they want to downsize. The house is PERFECT for us. Perfect location, completely updated with the things we would want, a fantastic backyard and plenty of room for my grand piano. The man of the house is a civil engineer and has overseen all of the remodeling and the house looks like it has been very well taken care of. The only thing we would change would be : add a screen door, maybe change the paint color (the entire house was painted in the same neutral color), and refinish the bathtub in one of the guests bathrooms, oh and maybe get rid of the storage shed. It was originally on the market for 450k and is now for sale for 319k. Holy. Moly. The houses in the neighborhood are worth about 400K to the low millions.
So why aren't we putting in an offer? Well, we're trying to be financially responsible. Also, we aren't sure we want to stay in Dallas. We talk about moving to Seattle almost on a daily basis. It is tempting to think that we could pay more than 10% down on this house and hopefully sell it next summer and the value of the home should go up. Then, we could rent it out for a good profit. If we did that, we wouldn't have any money for a house in Seattle. Ugh...
We've kind of given up on the rental house search. Dallas rentals (and close suburbs rentals) are skyrocketing right now because the population is booming. Today we decided to start looking at a new apartment complex and that was a little disheartening.
Things I need to work on right now: trusting Him in everything, being content, and not comparing our situation to someone else's.
