Chicago Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Renting after Owning
Has anyone else rented after owning a home?
Since we can't sell my 1b condo, we're going to rent it out and then rent a larger condo once we have a baby. I'm torn between renting a mediocre place that is cheaper but lets us save more money OR renting a nice pad that would be comparable to where we live now but we wouldn't be able to save as much each month.
Opinions?
Re: Renting after Owning
My huband rented after owning, but I think it is different for a guy. He owned in the suburbs and then rented an apartment in the city since he did not expect to live in the city long.
Have you started looking at apartments? How different are the mediocre ones to the ones that are comparable to what you have now? Is your rating based on location, amenities, etc.? Location, size and storage were very important to me when I bought my home. Consequently, I sacrificed the kitchen. If it is only going to be for one or two years, I would probably go with the cheaper apartment that allows you to save more. However, if you are going to be miserable, it is not worth it.
I have owned my current place for about 3.5 years and I often think about how much easier it would be to rent. The management company for my condo association is a nightmare and I often feel like I would never want to buy again unles it is a single family home.
We rent now and still own a townhome in Ohio (that we're renting out to someone else). There's definitely some things that we miss about owning--i.e. doing things when we want to do them (paint, maintenance, etc) but there's also perks to renting--i.e. someone else pays the maintenance. We downsized when we decided on our rental in order to save money and i'm really glad we did. We didn't sacrifice location or general size but we sacrificed some amenities (older, closets, only one bath). Like the PP mentioned, i'm not convinced i want a condo assoc and would prefer a single family home. However, those don't come cheap in the areas i want to live in. i don't mind renting for another year or 1.5 and then see where we're at. i think DH wants to move as soon as our lease is up. We'll see who wins.
We are in the exact same boat. We are trying to sell DH's 1 bedroom condo so we can get a bigger place and get pg, but the market sucks so bad right now in the city. We've had only a few 2nd showings and not one offer.
We've been seeing a few 2 bd condo's for rent (not sure how much you want to spend renting) but we are thinking this might be an option for us. They are people in the same situation as us, so we'd rent a nice 2 bd condo while saving up $ for a down payment on a new house. Since we are taking a hell of a hit when ever we sell this place. We look on craigslist every few days for places.
Are you pg yet??
Thanks for the responses. I didn't respond immediately because the "Watching this thread" didn't send the responses to my email like it did with theknot.
Anyhoo, we have 1b condo and ideally would buy a 3b condo/townhouse in the city. We don't plan on heading towards a SFH, it's not in the cards for us. So our choice is renting a 2b or 3b, and how "nice". I need lots of closet space but might be willing to do an older kitchen.
We should be done with the closing very soon and can then start to rent it out in the Spring. I'm thinking Spring would be better since most people don't want to move in the Winter. Gotta love Chicago weather!
Mabmin, we really haven't gone to start looking. To be honest, I have sort of put all of the whole thing since I'm so sad that I can't our dream home.
Thank you everyone! I think we'll put up a modest cap so we can continue to build the fund.
lmb5109, no babies yet. The plan is 2010!
The biggest problem that I had when buying was that the newest condos that I could afford had horrible closets and storage. I could not believe how many places that I looked at that did not have linen closets or coat closets. I am very glad that I did not sacrifice closets and storage. I didn't get a walk-in closet, but we have great closets. The older, 80s kitchen is not ideal, but we have a ton of space. I don't think I'd give up my basement for a new kitchen.
I know I'm late on this thread, but wanted to share our situation. I think that renting is perfectly fine, sometimes even better than owning (even as a long-term housing situation). My husband is very adamant on this and has kind of made me see the other side. I have never owned, but her has owned two homes. There are ways to make renting a better financial choice in the long-run than buying a house (mainly if you use some of the saved money on investments). I do not think that owning a home is somethign that is "better" than renting, and think that there is a social stigma to renting (like you rent if you can't afford to buy a home), when in fact very responsible people decide to rent out of financial planning, not because they have no other options.
So I say - go ahead and rent until your heart's content! As far as what kind of place - I wouldn't want to cut rent so much to save money that I was unhappy (no storage, or not close to public transportation), but agree with others that there is no reason to go deluxe right now if you are trying to save.
Roma, can I ask how long you've had your condo on the market? And if you want to say, have you had to drop your asking price? How much?
We started with @properties in July 2008 for 6 months (agent sucked). Did For Sale by Owner till this past August. Now have a Remax agent who has been working with our building for over 10 years. We've dropped over $20k off our first listed price.