Money Matters
Stephanie2167
member
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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.
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To move or wait it out
I was going to post this on the Military page but decided you ladies might have more insight (and it's more active over here). We transferred to Texas in June 2013. I was 16 weeks pregnant with my girls. The rental market her goes FAST (we weren't aware) so my husband was looking at rentals while staying in a hotel (myself and our daughter hadn't come out yet). Because the market goes so fast we sorta took the first thing we could get that would fit our growing family. After a few months we pretty much hated the house (floor plan is weird, landlord is lazy, just needs a lot of work). We looked at possibly buying last summer and we also looked at other rentals but with 6 month old twins at home we just sucked it up and signed another year lease (after our landlord raised rent - of all the houses I've rented in 10 years I've never had someone raise rent on us. Argh!)
Our lease will be up again in June and we're on the fence about moving again. We'll be transferring Summer of 2016 so we'd only be there for a year. One week we say "suck it up and stay" then the next week we are so fed up with the house we say "we need to get the hell out of here." I honestly think of all our rentals this is the one we just don't feel at home.
Money wise I know our best bet would be to suck it up, but at what point does your family happiness come into play?
Or does anyone have any advice to make this place feel more like home? Without spending an arm and a leg on decor.
Our lease will be up again in June and we're on the fence about moving again. We'll be transferring Summer of 2016 so we'd only be there for a year. One week we say "suck it up and stay" then the next week we are so fed up with the house we say "we need to get the hell out of here." I honestly think of all our rentals this is the one we just don't feel at home.
Money wise I know our best bet would be to suck it up, but at what point does your family happiness come into play?
Or does anyone have any advice to make this place feel more like home? Without spending an arm and a leg on decor.
Re: To move or wait it out
I can identify since I felt the same way about our last rental. To make it homey, doing a little light gardening helped for me. Really, though, I mostly kept my eyes on the prize of a down payment and spent lots of time browsing Zillow.
We've thought about asking if we can remove the wallpaper in the bathrooms and paint but then we're like "why should we?" We had to replace the fabric vertical blinds in the living because they were stained with splatters of who knows what from previous tenants. Gross.
It could also be that we have three young kids so our house usually looks like a tornado hit it by bedtime and neither one of us have the energy after working all day and taking care of the kids to clean it up. ;-)
When I was single in the Navy, I once moved roughly 6 times in a 10 month span, that really sucked. I could not imagine doing this with three children and a family.
As long as you are moving every two or three years, buying is not a good option for you unless you are paying cash.
An aside on the rent increase: depending upon the part of Houston you are in, houses saw huge increases in taxable value. Our rental property went up 50% in value on paper last year, that is the broken property tax system in this state. We had to raise the rent on our tenant too. And she had been in for two years, with no problems.
ETF typo
I would wait for all the reasons previous posters have listed.
It sounds like a serious pain for just 1 year.
Love: March 2010 Marriage: July 2013 Debt Free: October 2014 TTC: May 2015
I don't know you and your husband' personality, but it may not be such a bad idea to buy a house...however, ONLY if you plan to keep it and rent it out once you leave. I mean, after all, the rental market is apparently HOT in your area
. Being an OOT landlord is doable, but not for the faint of heart. PM me if you want to go this route. I can give you a basic lowdown on how to analyze a purchase to be used as a rental.
Otherwise, buying a house to only live in for one year and then sell would probably be a huge financial disaster unless you bought it substantially under appraisal or bought a fixer-upper that would sell in a year for at least 30% more than the cost of the house plus repairs.
Outside of that, I'm in the "stay, grin and bear it" club. It's such a hassle to move and it would only be for one more year. I also don't think it is that unusual for the rent to have been raised, as long as it was not a substantial amount. I'm a landlady myself and, though I have not done it to date, I plan to start including in my leases a 3%/year rent increase after each 12 months, just to keep up with inflation and not do a big jump every 2-3 years.
If the floors are in bad shape, if you haven't already, I would buy large, pretty throw rugs to cover them up a good bit.
That's really lousy about the backyard, especially with young kids. I'd normally give a pass to the landlord on that, since that is how it's always been. But saying it is going to be fixed up nice and then not doing it is really scummy. If he tries to raise the rent again when your lease comes up, I'd try to use that as leverage. Like, "Actually, when we first rented here you said you will fix up the backyard. We've been patient, but it is now two years later and the backyard is still unusable. We'll agree to $X amount more rent, but not until the backyard is done." Even in a hot rental market, it's still a pain to switch over tenants and you'll usually lose at least 1-2 weeks in rent, so he might go for it.
So, now my short rant. WTH is wrong with him that he didn't take care of that pest problem IMMEDIATELY!?!?! Geez! Even from a "selfish landlord" viewpoint, do you know what rats and squirrels do? They eat wires, drywall, and siding. They are super destructive to a house. A $200 exterminator bill is chump change next to a $2,000+ bill from the electrician to rewire sections of a house after vermin have been gnawing away.
I always stress to new tenants when they first move in, to please, please let me know about any maintenance issues that occur during their tenancy ASAP. Because small things can quickly escalate into big, expensive things.
Oh! Speaking of. The backyard of mud? Is there any water pooling or running down anywhere near the house? Because I'm sure he doesn't want to do that expensive foundation repair again and nothing ruins a foundation faster than improper drainage...which a yard with grass/sod would help to soak up rain water.
We've also called him about trimming the big tree in our backyard. We've been working hard ourself on trying to fix the yard so the kids can use it. Grass feed, etc. But with a huge tree not giving the yard any sun, that makes it difficult. So he comes by one afternoon and I kid you not trims like three limbs off a small tree in a corner near the fence. Never touches the big tree that is hanging on the roof. My husband also showed him how the hardwoods in the living room were separating and that he wasn't sure if it was the foundation again. He said he'd send out the foundation guy since the work is warranted and that was months ago. Still nothing.
It's just a bad experience we've had. But we are leaning towards sucking it up and staying. Our oldest daughter starts Kindergarten in September and the twins are in a nearby daycare that we love. And I don't WANT to have to move with three kids. That sounds terrible. And then to have to do it again a year later? Ugh!
By the way - since the exterminator came out we've found two more mice in traps in the attic. Barf.
Ugh, yuck! I'm super skeeved out by mice and rats.
I swear, I just don't understand some people. It's great to be penny-wise, but not if that means you are being pound foolish. And branches sitting/hanging over a roof eventually causes roof damage. We have an area over the corner of our roof that has a neighbor's tree that grows over it. And a few times/year, my DH has to whack some branches back.
I have the opposite problem you do with my yard. I'm in the Deep South and my yard has NO shade covering and gets nothing but hot sun all summer. Then the winter is just slightly too cold. So I basically have beautiful, lush grass for a maybe a couple months in spring and fall. The rest of the year it is dirt with grass clumps dotted around...but it is still usable and easy to walk around in.
One of these days I am going to get artificial grass. Nowadays, it is surprisingly realistic looking. But it is also surprisingly expensive to purchase and install, lol.
Hi Stephanie,
I am military and grew up moving my entire life so I'm a little desensitized to the process of it, but I honestly think that you should move if you feel that your family would be happier overall in a new home. I totally agree with the above posts that you should weigh out whether the rent cost and moving costs would be affordable, but when it comes down to it, you want to wake up in a place where you can be happy and enjoy your surroundings.
I just moved for the 2nd time in 2 years by choice and I don't regret it for a second. Our new rent is higher than the previous place but we were MISERABLE in our last apartment. The neighborhood/neighbors weren't great, the apartment was dark and older and there were too many cosmetic/upkeep issues that the landlord did not care to handle. It has made a huge difference now that we've moved and having a backyard we can use and finally having a landlord who is a good communicator and sends repairmen out when necessary.
My DH and I have felt much more stress-free and overall a lot more happy in everyday life thanks to a change in scenery. My pup appreciates it too and I'm sure you'd love for your girls to have a suitable outdoor play area among the peace of mind in having a pest/rodent free home.
The move itself will be a hassle but if you plan in advance and have some family/friends help you with the labor and babysitting it might go smoother. We basically gave ourselves a deadline and looked into hiring local movers by the hour, but decided it was easier to use DH's truck and a cousin to help. We moved 40 minutes from our old place and started by moving essentials (clothes, pantry items, small appliances, valuables) by just piling them up in my car, then made sure the first furniture haul with the truck had our bed and dining table in it so we could start to get settled asap.
Sorry for the rambling, just wanted to offer a bit of a different perspective. Good luck with whichever you choose!!