Moving Update

In my recent post Moving or Moving? I talked about how the apartment complex we are residing in wants to renovate our building, which would make us need to move regardless if we stayed here or not. This past week however we managed to talk with the office and I have a few updates to share.

Originally our complex was intending to start renovations on our building once our lease was up in July. If we decided to stay here and not move elsewhere we would have needed to move to another building.

Apparently the office however, overlooked the fact that another tenant in the building has a lease until the end of December. This means the apartment building CAN NOT be renovated until at least December once that tenants lease is up.

According to hubby, the office told him they are now unsure if and when they will renovate....But if they do renovate it will not be until December.

This means we are allowed to continue living here until they decide to renovate. We will not have to move in July because apparently they have no other apartments to place us in and will not move us unless they are 100% sure they will be renovating down the line.

So what does this mean for us.... Since they are not certain if they will be renovating or not and do not have another apartment for us to move into, they WILL NOT renew a 1 yr lease. After our lease ends in July, we will then go on a month to month basis with them. They have promised to give us at least 2mths notice if they do decide to renovate the building and they are allowing us to move out whenever we want if we choose to move elsewhere as long as we give them 30 day notice (currently we have to give 60 days notice)

Now while I do not like having to do month to month, it honestly makes me worry without having an actual lease, it does have its benefits. This means that we can continue to look for a new place if we want and gives us the ability to find a rental house without having to rush. This allows us more time and more homes to appear on the market....but at the same time giving us some sense of security as they will HAVE  to find us an apartment to move into if they decide to renovate come December.

All in all everything is still kind of up in the air, but with some sense of direction as to what is going on. Currently hubby and I have made peace with it, as there really isn't anything we can do about it. We will however be getting it in writing that we will be switching over to month to month payments just so I can feel a little bit more secure.

This does mean though that if a place opens up in August/September or later that we can now go look at it, when we previously would not have been able to as we would have had to sign another 1 year lease. That I suppose is the blessing of going month to month.

So for the time being, I am continuing making this apartment even more organized and homey and when the time comes for us to move to another building or a completely new space entirely we will welcome it with positive open arms and have my Pinterest ideas ready to go :)

Happy Mother's Day

To all the wonderful Mother's out there.... I wish you the happiest Mother's Day!!!

Moving or Moving?

I know, I know, you are probably wondering Jamie why did you title this blog post moving or moving? Seems off right? A typo or misprint of some sort...and honestly I would love to say that it is but the truth is I can't. We are in fact 100% moving again, although it may just be to another building.

OK, so now that I have you officially confused let me explain what has been going on in our life lately and why we are moving yet again.

Many of you who read this blog also follow my youtube channel thenotsoordinarywife and may at least have some sense of idea about what is going on. For those of you that don't here is what is going on.

About 2 months ago hubby and I started discussing moving when our lease runs out in July. We really wanted to find a house to rent as we have been longing for a yard, a garage, and a washer/dryer of our own. The idea was we would only move if we could find a house for rent that was in our price range and had everything we wanted. We also did not want to give up things such as space, closets, etc. We did have 2 exceptions with this rule though. While we would not move to a smaller home, we would give up a 1/2 bath to gain a house and we would give up a dishwasher if it meant gaining a washer/dryer.


So with that being said, I went searching craigslist and the newspaper for rental homes. Many that I found either did not allow pets, which would not work for us and our 2 fur babies  or the home was way outside of our budget. The city we live in while nice is also a very expensive area. 

It is not uncommon for a 2bd apartment to rent in the $700-1k range and many 2bd homes rent in the $800-2k range. While this may not seem alot to some of you we do not feel comfortable paying that much for a rental home when we could live in a cheaper apt. and put the extra money aside to save for a down payment on a home later in life. 

That being said we have found a few places that did spark our interest and we have viewed a few homes however, nothing has really stood out to us and made us want to move. While we would love to rent a home, currently I just do not see that happeneing.

Which brings me to my next point, the fact despite us not moving to a house, we are indeed still moving...

This past week hubby stopped in our apartment complex office about a burnt out light on our patio and was greeted with some interesting information.

Our apartment complex is going to be renovating the building that we live in and we will need to move out. Currently there are only 3 residents in the building we live in. Hubby and I and then 2 others. After the end of this month, those residents will be moving out and will only leave hubby and I. Due to this, they figured it would be a great time to do some much needed renovations and updates to the building.

What this means for us though is that even if we decide to stay we will need to move to another building. Although we are fine with staying here, we do love our current home, we are a little less then happy about the fact that we are still going to need to move regardless if we decide to leave or stay.

While there are great pros to staying here
-pools
-fitness center
-2 laundry rooms
-hubby can walk to work (this is a BIG reason to stay)
-and the general fact that we live in a good area 

...there are still some cons for staying here
-many occasions the dryers are broken
-no washer/dryer in our apt/have to use the laundry rooms
-only 1 pool was open and not 2, even though they have 2
-management, to put it nicely, do not have it all together lol

and the cons with this issue of having to move to another building can be easily done but are still a pain

-We will have to pack up our apartment and move everything to a different building
-We will have to buy paint and repaint our new apartment
-We will have to contact all of our utility companies in order to transfer our services, which some will incur transfer fees
-We will have no idea who our neighbors will be, the noise level, what level we will be on, how close we will be to the laundry room, etc

While all of the above can be taken care of and the costs of transfer fees and paint can be negotiated so that management reimburses us, it is still a pain that we will have to spend our time and our money and move when we would not have had to...and it will not benefit us in the least while it will benefit them in the long run (renovated apartments = more profit) 

We are going to be sitting down with management to discuss all possibilities and figure everything out so hopefully something comes of it, but for now this is where everything stands.

At the moment what we are doing is still up in the air, though we are 90% sure we will stay and re-sign our lease. Despite it all, it is cheaper and better for us if we stay. 

Moving is not cheap, and by not moving we save money. No U-haul fees, no 1st mth, last mth, security deposit and pet deposit to pay, no extra gas costs due to hubby having to once again drive to work, no worries about snow and if hubby can make it to work in his Firebird (which is not really a winter friendly car lol)

One day you will be mine! 

Yes, we will have to deal with some issues by staying here and sadly I will have to wait to get my washer/dryer but by staying here hubby can still walk to work, our expenses stay the same, and that is one more year of being able to save even more money to either move to a rental next year or use as a down payment on a house. 

You have to take the good with the bad in life and sometimes that means making what you have work ...and always remember if it ain't broke then don't fix it

Our apartment works for the time being, so we are going to leave things the way they are.


Have you ever had a situation like this come up? What made you decide to stay in your current place or move?