House Hunting Update #4: We Got Screwed

This is an update that I didn’t anticipate that I’d have to make, and now that it’s become a reality, I’m feeling more stressed than I have ever felt during this entire process — and if you’ve been following along, you know how huge that is. Today’s post is a house hunting update explaining our current situation (which isn’t a good one, but we’ll get into that in a minute), how we’re feeling and what’s to come in the next few months for us.

I vowed that I’d share the good, the bad and the ugly… and this is the ugly, my friends. If you’re new here, it’s important to read my previous house hunting updates before diving into this one so you’re caught up on the full story:

1. Let the House Hunting Commence: Tips for Starting Your Search
2. House Hunting Update: This is Even Harder Than We Thought
3. House Hunting Update: Another One Bites The Dust
4. House Hunting Update: We Had It, Then We Let It Go

Now that you’re all caught up, welcome to the latest craziness of this so called house hunting journey for our first home. In all seriousness, the title is exactly right: we got screwed. I wish I could say I’m being overly dramatic, but this is our reality. Take a seat, especially if you HATE wasting money.

RENEWING OUR APARTMENT LEASE

With our apartment lease ending on May 31 (we’ve now been here for two years) and not having a house yet, we were forced to re-sign. This felt like a huge fail to us since we’d been trying to beat this deadline since the very beginning of our house hunting journey. But since we weren’t able to get our hands on a house in time and we don’t want to move more than we have to (i.e. renting a house or a different apartment for a brief period of unknown time), this was our only option.

We’d done our research and made necessary preparations a few months back. We were told back in March or so by an employee working at our apartment office that our options were a year lease, a three-month lease or a month-to-month lease. This woman said a three-month lease would be the best option because the monthly fee for doing so would be cheaper than month-to-month, or there may even not be a fee at all. We thought about it for a while and as our due date crept up, we knew a three-month lease was our most realistic option.

We went in to sign our lease last week and were hit with the bombshell that they aren’t currently offering three-month leases and won’t until maybe November or so. We were instantly on edge since we were already told this was an option and this was something we were completely counting on. Not only did they say this isn’t a current option, but they claimed they have no idea why one of their employees would have ever told us that (ughhh) and that they’re limited by corporate on how many leases can expire per month — AKA they’ve already met their maximum.

Now, this doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but when I get into the financials of this, you’ll see why we’re so mad. The month-to-month rental fee here is $300 a month, in addition to a rent increase that meets “market rate,” which we would have had to pay with any length of lease we signed. We are now paying nearly $400 more a month than what we were paying before for a basic one bedroom apartment. We’re absolutely dumbfounded by this. How outrageous is that?!

We didn’t go down without a fight. The manager even checked the call logs to see if she could find proof of the conversation we had with the employee and she said she couldn’t find it. If she had found it, she would have had to meet it, so we were pretty disappointed that there was “no trace of it.” Though we’ve been perfect tenants for the past two years who’ve always paid our rent on time, there was “nothing they could do” for us and “their hands were tied.”

My parents offered to let us stay with them or in one of their rentals in the meantime (my family owns and flips houses back home in Decatur County), but the one hour commute to work in downtown Indy every day sounds like misery to me. But on the other hand, all of our options sound like misery, so we’re at a loss. I hate wasting this much money while we’re trying to prepare for the biggest purchase of our lives to date.

STRESSED TO THE MAX

Now the pressure is on more than ever to find a house so we can stop paying these outrageous apartment rental fees. I’m so angry, discouraged, annoyed and frustrated all at the same time. This is the complete opposite of how we wished this process would go for us, and it’s so sad to step back and recognize how rough this entire experience has been.

I’ve come to the realization that this stress and pressure to find our house is going to be present no matter where we live in the meantime, but that doesn’t make our decisions any easier to make. Justin and I aren’t the kind of people to jump into things without carefully thinking about it, and that makes all of this really heavy on our hearts and minds. Every day we go visit houses I feel more discouraged, but a tiny bit more hopeful sometimes too. I’d give anything to snap my fingers and be in our future home, happy and thriving.

There are so many ways we can go with this, and I think that makes it all even harder. Figuring out what we want to spend within our budget and what things are the most important to us seems to shift here and there a tiny bit as we chase after houses. It’s difficult knowing this first home isn’t going to be our forever home, yet the market is forcing us to purchase at a dream-house price. The market is hot and absolutely insane, and we feel like total pawns in the thick of it.

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…and that’s where we’re at. I always say that I hope my next update is a positive one, but I guess we just haven’t gotten there yet. I want to be totally transparent with you guys about how this process and our experience has been because I’d give anything for each and every one of you to not have to go through what we have. With Justin being done with school for the summer (he’s a teacher for those of you who don’t know), we’re hoping the time he’ll now have to throw into this will propel us forward positively.

If you enjoyed this post, have any advice for us, questions or are going through the same thing, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Thank you so much for taking an interest in us and following along on our journey — I’ve gotten so many sweet messages from you guys on this series and it seems to be a crowd favorite here on my blog. Be on the lookout for future updates & check back for another new post from me here on Wednesday. Have an amazing week, friends!