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I got a call on my way to work this morning from the realtor who showed us the rental house I posted about yesterday. Our application (which we faxed her last night) has been approved and so the house is ours if we want it. Good news, right? Well sorta. Our application has been approved but was HASN’T been approved it the July 1st move-in date. The owner has proposed a June 15th move-in date, but with our current lease not ending til July 15th, that would put us paying rent for two places for 30 days (and that’s a fair bit of money). But whatever we decide we have to do it quick because I absolutely have to tell our current landlord whether we’re renewing or vacating ASAP (technically I’m already a hair late with our notification). The way I see it we have 3 options:
Option 1: We can suck it up and pay the extra month’s worth of rent. That’s not gonna leave us starving, but it’ll mean tightening our belts alot tighter than we’d like for a month. On the other hand, we’d get the house, and we’d have a full month to casually move as time allowed.
Option 2: Forget the house, and renew our current lease. That means we’d be paying what we consider too high of rent for a townhouse (in this area, in other parts of the country, it’d be a bargain), and we wouldn’t have the more flexible leasing options that would come available after just a year in the house. On the other hand, monthly rent would be $50/month less than the house, and we wouldn’t have to go through the headache of moving.
Option 3: We could give vacating notice, but wait to put a hold on the house until closer to the end of our current lease. Of course that means hoping nobody else comes along and rents the house while we’re waiting, and if they do it means frantically trying to find a new place before our current lease runs up. We probably wouldn’t end up homeless, but if somebody rented out the house from under us, we might be forced to move in to wherever we could find, even if we really didn’t like it at all. (This one is a little too risky for me, so I really probably only have the first two options)
Haven’t talked to TheBoyfriend™ about it yet, I called him earlier but he didn’t answer his phone so he must be with a client, so we’ll see what he thinks…
Update: Talked with TheBoyfriend™ at lunch and he wanted to sleep on it. But then I got a call, while still at work, asking if we’d made up our minds because someone else wanted to see the house and if we wanted it, she wouldn’t bother showing it to them. So I made the split second decision to say we wanted it, lest the other people she was about to show it to, decided they wanted it and claimed it before us. Not sure TheBoyfriend™ was overwhelmingly thrilled I made such a decision without him, but hey, he always says he wishes I’d make more decisions, and I didn’t want to lose the house. So we move in on June 15th (though since our current lease doesn’t end til July 15th, we’ll probably move over bit by bit at a leisurely pace), and now that it’s decided (though technically I still have to swing by by Wed of next week to sign he lease before it will truly be a done deal), my impatience is kicking in and I want to move NOW.
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May 28th, 2008 at 11:05 amKipEsquire says:
The first rule of rational economic behavior is to ignore fixed costs whenever possible and make decisions only at the margin.
Alternatively: Estimate the total time you expect to live in the new place and divide the one month of double-rent by the total number of months you will live in the new place. Consider that amount as part of the new monthly rent you will be paying. Is the new house still worth it?
And I expect an invitation to the housewarming party.