Depressing House Hunting

House hunting for rentals is NOT going well.

We walked into the office with about 30 potential rentals and by the time we were ready to go looking, it was down to 8—the agent took a lot out because she knew they were too far away or were in bad neighborhoods or were too big (a favorite of ours was taken out because she said our heating bills for a 3000sf old house would be in the $500 range).

So…our top two choices were taken by the time we were ready to see them so that was a BIG disappointment. The ones we are looking at are in the $1100-1500 range and they are…not what we want (so we can’t even imagine trying to go cheaper). There is only ONE so far that we considered doable, and they don’t take pets, so we have a call in to say “what will it take to allow pets.” Other ones that may be doable are either too far away or don’t allow pets. Some we had to take off because the master bedroom was too small (since when can 12×10 be a MBR?) or it was SO old and disgusting you couldn’t pay me to live there.

So, we have decided that we are going to look at rentals AND resales. We are just really afraid that there aren’t going to be any rentals and we will have looked at 10 total over 10 days and will leave with nothing. Worst case, we buy…get a cheaper house payment…and in two years, either the market will have turned around and we can sell…or it will be the same as it is now and it should be easy to rent.

It has just been VERY depressing and we’ve only been at it one day. 🙁 Needless to say we now love our $1500 mortgage for our 2200sf brand new house with 4BR/2.5BA and a 17×14 MBR. The same $1500 here gets you something from 1970 with 1400sf, 1.5 or 2 baths, and a 13×12 MBR.

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