So we just had an exciting week!
After multiple confirmations over the months that we can continue to rent our house until the end of the school year, our landlords decided to kick us out anyways, despite how pregnant my wife is or the slew of promises that we had planned our life around.
And let me tell you – if you ever wondered how to piss off a pregnant lady, this is how to do it ;)
What changed? Their realtor said they have a better shot of selling it for more money if they list it in the Spring vs the Summer (we knew they wanted to sell, but only after we moved out in June), and hours later we got the boot without much room for negotiation whatsoever. And because we were on a month-to-month lease (oops), they had every legal right to do so.
Now ethics wise it’s a whole other story, and we’ll get to that in a bit, but the GOOD news is that we miraculously found a new place within days of looking – even with a slow rental market and it being in the middle of winter!! So crisis averted for now, but what a whirlwind of emotions, wow.
And I know you home owners right now are just shaking your heads thinking this is exactly why you own, haha…, and rightfully so, but it’s still not enough to get me to switch back quite yet ;) I’m just chalking it up to finally being my time to deal with some of the nastier sides of renting after years of bliss!
Anyways, here’s a look at some of the perks of our new place, just to keep things a bit positive up in here. And now that the chaos over, I’m actually starting to get a bit excited about it!
- We’re going from 1,100 sq ft to 2,500 sq ft (which is a welcomed change, not gonna lie… I thought I could do small-home living with a family of 4, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds! Haha… We got through okay, but I’ll be glad to have some extra space again…)
- Has 4 bedrooms instead of 3 (maybe room for an office finally?)
- 3 bathrooms vs 1 (<– my wife’s favorite part)
- Bigger backyard and play room (<– kid’s favorite part!)
- Much more open and SUNNY! (<– cat’s favorite part ;))
- Private driveway vs street parking
- And then MY favorite part –> It’s right down the street from the school so I can WALK MY SON THERE every morning!! Which is something I’ve always wanted to do! We’ll have to move him out of his current school since we’re now gonna be in a new district (literally couldn’t find one house under $2,600 in his current district – crazy!) but it’s just as nice a school, and fortunately he’s great at meeting new friends…
So by and large we’re turning lemons into lemonade here, and will probably enjoy our new home even MORE once we’re settled and everything calms down… And it will be nice not having to deal with moving *after* the baby is born too. As for price, it’ll cost us about $100 more a month now ($2,300 vs $2,200) which is still ridiculous, but we did manage to negotiate it down by $100 which is something?
(A funny aside to that btw – I had originally put down our *entire net worth* in our application thinking that it would showcase how solid we were, however after my wife scolded me for “showing them our cards” and wiping away all chances for a discount, I scaled it back by a good 80% and sure enough it did the trick :) First time I’ve ever had to lie in *that* direction to get something I wanted! Haha… And another win for stealth wealth too – BOOM.)
I still can’t wait to move back to my beloved Virginia though, but Mrs. BudgetsAreSexy promises this is our last year here in the DC area, so 16 more months to go and then it’s back to the promise land… The things you do for love (and career!).
House stuff aside though, I’d love to get your opinion on the *ethics* part of the equation here. And it’s something that affects so many different parts of our lives too, and is good to draw the line NOW before future situations arise and you accidentally choose the path that goes against your true values.
And the question I’d like to pose to you is this:
At what point do you choose what’s best for YOU vs what you’ve promised others? Or more specifically to this situation – when does the *money* outweigh your *integrity*? Or does integrity not even matter in such business deals?
Personally, I know myself well enough that I couldn’t ever screw ANYONE over even if I wanted to regardless of the financial benefits, because I’d just be too riddled with guilt! And that’s before even bringing a pregnant person into the picture, haha…
Now of course, if we’re talking about a lot of money here that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try to work *something* out to be more beneficial to everyone, because it certainly doesn’t have to be so cut and dry, but at the end of the day if it put my people in a $hitty situation I’d have to draw the line there and just suck it up.
Because after all, as the landlord *I* was the one who made the bad call earlier for not figuring out this stuff in the first place! These jokers had alllll the time in the world to research and consult with realtors, they didn’t have to wait until the last minute and put everyone in a tight spot?! We’re not mad because we have to move out, we’re mad because of the way it was handled and the fact they were suck dicks about it all. Which you know is bad if *I’m* the one calling someone that as I love everyone, haha…
So yeah – that’s where I stand, anyways. But of course I’m probably biased ;) What about you though? What would you have done if you were our landlords? Kicked us out because business is business, or shown a little compassion and at least tried to work something out for everyone?
On the flip side, how would you have handled it if you were US – the renters – getting the boot? Would you have fought back and challenged it, or just do your best to move on and make the best of a crappy situation? In the end of course that’s what we chose to do as we were glad to just be done with them once and for all (it wasn’t the first time we’ve had a bad experience with them), but curious to hear your thoughts and maybe even learn something today… Especially if you side with them on all this! :)
We’ll see how it plays out in the end, but hopefully it’ll be a blessing in disguise and we can look back at it later and just laugh at it all :)
Now time to get to packing and be thankful for all the decluttering we’ve done over the years, boy… The one nice thing about living in a smaller house is that it forces you to get rid of all the fluff! And we’ll now have to make sure we don’t regress and expand again moving into a place double the size too…
Thanks for listening and letting me vent a little today, guys… Always nice to have an outlet for that :)
XOXO
Via Finance http://www.rssmix.com/
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