Gotta move AGAIN

Going to take a look at this place pretty soon. It's a cottage above a garage and the price is about the same as an apartment, but I think a better setup because there are no common walls with neighbors since you're just on the owner's property and he lives in the main house next door. Plus I get a parking space in the driveway, which is cool (cooler if I got a space in the garage itself, but no big whoop). Found it on Craigslist, and I think it looks pretty dope from the pictures.

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Rent's $750/month, which I'm not all that sure is too high for me or not. That's almost double what I'm paying now, but I'll be three miles from work instead of fifteen, which will considerably lower what I spend on gas and insurance, both for driving to work (or avoiding driving to work altogether and just biking) as well as downtown or friends' houses on weekends and shit. Plus, I'm making an extra $100-150 per week since my promotion, so I think it's doable. I'm just thinking that I likely won't be SAVING much, if at all. I was trying to figure out a way to still get a 2-bedroom and split it with a roommate, but I have NO IDEA about who I could room with. Plus, maybe it's just finally time I truly get a place for myself. Sounds like a nice thought and I really like the look and description of this place. Hopefully it's as cool in person as in the pictures and the guy's cool and everything. Hell, since it's just a guy renting a place above his garage maybe he's even flexible on rent and can drop it $50/month or forego a deposit or lets you access his wireless internet for free, or hopefully at least something.

Looks nice. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I gotta move out at the end of the month actually. And I'm not sure what I want to do. I think I might just suck it up and move back home with the parents for a couple months so I can save up money for a down payment on a house.

Yeah, a bit pricey but it seems quite nice.

I need to move out of my current place in about 2 weeks, and then I am going to just stay with a series of friends, go hang out with my dad for bit, then my mom for a bit, then my grandparents, and then fly to Chile after about a month of this.

The trip between these places should be interesting. Indiana to Chicago then to Idaho (all by car), and then Idaho to California (by plane), and then California to Chile (by walking).

I still don't even have a place in Chile yet. I've looked around online and can't find shit, but the people there say that finding someplace online isn't what I should do, and that I should just show up and stay in a hotel for a week or so (on their bill) and find a place in person. Should be interesting.

Aww. What will happen to your current roomate? Does this mean no more stories?

jeffnogo wrote:

(...)then California to Chile (by walking).

wot

Hollow_Viscus wrote:

Aww. What will happen to your current roomate? Does this mean no more stories?

Fuck him I don't give a shit. I want to ACTUALLY never see or hear from him again like I thought I was doing the last time.

GROCERIES wrote:

jeffnogo wrote:

(...)then California to Chile (by walking).

wot

lol

say sup to peeps depending on where in California you're visiting.

tuggernuts wrote:

Looks nice. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I gotta move out at the end of the month actually. And I'm not sure what I want to do. I think I might just suck it up and move back home with the parents for a couple months so I can save up money for a down payment on a house.

I've strongly considered going this route too, except for the living with parents to save up part, since it's impossible lol. But I have a little bit of change saved up, and I know that California's still offering assistance to first time/low income buyers, and depending on the area, minimum down payments keep getting lower and lower (I've heard of some that are under a grand). But that's an even bigger commitment than a lease, and takes more time to investigate and learn what you gotta do, in addition to the obvious of making super sure that you want to commit to that one specific property. I was also reading an article in the paper last week that said that mortgage payments in the area are mostly the same or CHEAPER than paying rent, and that the house is also often better/bigger compared to whatever rental unit. I'd bet that if you got like a 2 or 3 bedroom house and found renters for the spare rooms you could have damn near all your mortgage paid for each month I'm still not sure on where I'd even start looking into all this, though.



Just gettin back from checkin the place out, and I'm less excited about it now lol. The living room's very small and the "dining area" especially is crazy tiny. At best you could fit a flush hi-top table against the wall and two or three chairs, and even then the chairs would probably get in the way of doors or walkways. The bedroom is not bad and a decent size, and the bathroom is pretty awesome in there (nice tile and period tile, vintage fixtures). And for some reason the place actually has 1 1/2 bathrooms, and the half bathroom is literally right next to the main bathroom only not accessible through the bedroom but instead through the dining area. Weird, but whatever.

There's a wall-a/c unit in the bedroom, and he has another one he said he could put in the living room if I wanted. The living room has these really awesome big windows that wrap all the way around and have screens too, so I probably wouldn't bother with that. The living room does have that stupid little kitchy wannabe designer/mail-order fireplace, which you can see in the picture. Man is that thing cheap-looking in person though. I'd rather it just not be there at all. And all the appliances in the place look like total shit. Not just old, but worn the hell out too. The refrigerator is really small, which isn't too big a deal since I'd be by myself, but it doesn't have a proper freezer but instead a "freezer unit", which the dude said keeps ice cream soft like yogurt and takes overnight for ice cubes to actually freeze in ice trays. Shitty.

My biggest draw to it though is now largely deflated, too. In that first top-left picture, you can see the main house to the left, and that first upper window of the main house, is the master bedroom and it is indeed very close to the cottage. Like, eight feet or less. And they said that they sleep early and are light sleepers, so that even just opening and closing the door is plenty audible and an annoyance for them. So really it would be like living in an apartment in not being able to have friends over late or playing music loud. Bummer.

The location itself is decent, right across the street from a pretty cool and shady park, though it sucks that it only has tennis courts and not basketball courts. And the short distance to work/downtown (10-minute drive, 20-minute bike ride) is cool. But I'm thinking that since I'm less stoked on the place in general, that I'll definitely continue my search. Finding a 1-bedroom in like a 4-plex building for that same price give or take, but actually within downtown, is plenty doable, and might even have been the better way to go in the first place.

What if your roommate tries to move in with you at your new place?

X-pert74 wrote:

What if your roommate tries to move in with you at your new place?

I mentioned it in another thread (not sure which), but he's definitely moving back to Irvine and moving back in with his dad. In fact, he just told me he's moving out early, on the 13th of this month, just over a week away! That will give me over two weeks of having the place to myself and not having to put up with his bullshit or clean up after him while I'm trying to maintain the place in get-your-entire-deposit-back condition.

Sweet! Try not to lose it during the next week

The only thing that could make me lose it would be if he asked me for partial rent refund because he's moving out early. If he actually pulled some dumb shit like that, which I'm almost expecting him to, I'm sure I finally would have a true freakout moment like a few of you have been expecting (and wanting) me to lol.

Maybe you should pull that on him instead, he's dumb enough to fall for it.

Place looks pretty cool. Walk it to work bro. I live about the same distance from my office and it's a breeze walking it every day.

Basically pretty positive I'm not taking the place in the OP.

And walk? Everyday? It's like 3.9 miles. That's about 80 minutes each way, every got danged day lol. It ain't like I wouldn't or couldn't ever do it, but I'd rather bike or drive.

I walk because I don't have a bike right now. I plan on it eventually, but I live in a pretty hilly area so walking is honestly less of a pain.

Keeps me in shape I guess, lol

I'm bikeless right now too. It's probably my number one priority in terms of what could be deemed a "luxury" item; you know, after the obvious, like, get a place and then get a couch for it cuz I'll also be couchless soon lol.

Sux tho, cux whenever I finally get one I'm sure I'll still have missed yet another summer. (talking about a bike here, not a couch lol)

Same here. I told myself I would get a nice bike after my next paycheck, but I love seeing that much money in the bank and don't want to spend it, lol.

Hollow_Viscus wrote:

Maybe you should pull that on him instead, he's dumb enough to fall for it.

Like I mentioned to Loxx before, there's obviously always that chance that you don't get your full refund back, and if it happened to be because of some stuff they cited and I knew it was shit he did, I'd double the difference deducted from the deposit return to make him get less back but so that I still got 100% of my half of the deposit back, and I wouldn't feel even the tiniest little bit bad about doing that whatsoever. But that was months ago. He's since pulled monumentally more and more fucked up shit that I've considered just riding out the nice guy, turn the other cheek attitude so that I can gleefully fuck him over royally and say that we got zero deposit back and just take the whole thing. He's such a piece of shit, I wouldn't feel bad about it happening to him. I'd feel bad for myself as to having been dishonest, just with myself/in general, but yeah, fuck him. This fuck needs to get fucked over by somebody in his life for once.

Electroretard wrote:

Same here. I told myself I would get a nice bike after my next paycheck, but I love seeing that much money in the bank and don't want to spend it, lol.

Same once again on the liking what you see in the bank account and wanting it to stay there lol. But I still delude myself into thinking making a small CD/record order is okay cuz, "Hey, it's just 30/50 bucks. I'll just not eat out again until next paycheck" lol. But when I know I'm trying to spend around five hundo on a bike, I'm like, "shit, that's like paying rent twice this month. Fuck that."




maybe with missing another summer again like I said, I'll miss it so hard that I'll get a bike right when summer 2012 rolls around lol.

roughdraft_zero wrote:

Hell, since it's just a guy renting a place above his garage maybe he's even flexible on rent and can drop it $50/month or forego a deposit or lets you access his wireless internet for free, or hopefully at least something.

Dude, if it were me I'd offer to suck his cock and let him ream my asshole for $50 less a month.

...actually, I'd suck his cock and let him ream my asshole even if he didn't lower the rent.

paying $166/m for a house/fenced yard/pool and a 12 minute bike to work.

YA MAD?

FURIOUS

I think my search may be over. I'm actually giddy over this place I found.

1 bedroom/1 bath, right smack in downtown. Eight blocks from my work--yeah that's right, fucking eight blocks. Like a 12-minute walk. Fuck yes. It's an upstairs unit in a Victorian style 4-plex, that is currently completely vacant because the management who owns it actually just acquired it like a month ago and is still finishing up a few final repairs. Kinda would be awesome if it stayed that way for at least a little bit so that I wouldn't have to worry about noise from or to neighbors at all obviously.

Now, there are two 1 bed/1baths to choose from, and the most obvious differences would be: the first has carpet, the other has hardwood-print linoleum throughout; the first has a small kitchen, the other has a large and open kitchen that also features a walk-in pantry; the first has a large living room area with space and accents and a ceiling light/fan and tall 11-foot ceilings, the other has a smaller living room that's basically flat and does not feature a ceiling light/fan; one has just the main front entrance (enclosed within the main entrance of the building) and then up carpeted stairs to the actual unit entrance, and the other has that as well as a rear outside entrance through the kitchen (this would be more appealing if the landing outside was big enough for like a table or at least some chairs, but it's so small and narrow that it definitely can only be used for walking space).

The bathrooms are basically identical as far as both layout, size and design. And as far as inside the kitchen goes, the appliances are all about the same, and both lack a dishwasher, but the first has older tile and solid wood cupboards, and the second has faux-granite countertops and fake newer cherry plywood cabinets (I prefer the first in that regard). The kitchen in the second one is bigger like I said, and definitely big enough to fit a breakfast table and chairs, and the first one is way too small for anything like that. But, that's kind of just a wash since the living room in the first one has a corner nearest to the kitchen that you could definitely fit an even bigger dinner table in, and the living room itself is big enough that it wouldn't take away from whatever living room furniture that I would likely have in there. The bedrooms in each are both very small, basically room for a bed and dresser and not much else. The bedroom in the first is still better overall, I think, primarily because it features the closet on one of the long walls instead of the short one. In the second unit, the bedroom's closet is on one of the short walls, literally taking up that entire wall, effectively making you lose a wall. So despite the sizes of the bedrooms being the same, the first looks and feels bigger. Not to mention it's on the corner of the building and has more of the awesome big French windows.

Rent for them is either $760 or $765/month (the one I like more is actually the cheaper one...not much cheaper, I know, lol), so about the same as I was looking at in the one from the OP. But with these I definitely would not have to drive to work, and hanging out downtown means also literally walking likely less than fifteen blocks for most any place I'd want to go. So my driving miles would be cut in half if not more. If I weren't in a lease for my car I'd probably dump it, but I'm stuck with it for another year and a half or so. Oh well.




I can't figure out how to copy/paste the pics from the site, so I'll just post the unit listings themselves and each one has ten or so pics to browse through where you can see all of what I described in a minute flat instead of reading that shit up there for ten minutes lol. The addresses are listed on there though, so if I move into one of these places, don't remember the address and come kill me. Only remember it if it means you're gonna send me money or pubes or CDs in the mail.

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You leased a car? Wtf what a waste of money.

Not if I actually wanted to keep it.

Lease = have a car for a short while, smaller payments and not having to worry about anything but gas, oil changes and insurance. There's just that whole thing where you're locked into the car pretty tight.

LEASING CARS MATTER SETTLED NOW GO BACK TO LOOKING AT THE PICTURES AND TELLING ME HOW AWESOME THIS PLACE I PROBABLY CAN'T REALISTICALLY AFFORD WITHOUT OTHERWISE HAVING AN INCREDIBLY FRUGAL LIFESTYLE IS

lolk.

The decrease in driving distance alone would sell me on that place, fo real.

yeah me too, but I love the place itself. Kinda wish it had the best of both worlds and had the bigger kitchen and rear stair entrance and walk-in pantry, but what're you gonna do. Price is still right and love it overall otherwise and everythang.