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Anatomy Of Our Current Housing Dilemma

(Originally published on The $76K Project on 2/6/2018)

If you're following us on Twitter, you know that we're currently dealing with loud, inconsiderate neighbors in the apartment below ours. They blare music at night, hold thunderous conversations, interrupt our sleep, and basically make our home feel like a place we want to avoid. Our lease ends in June, so we're looking at another five months of living on edge.

If you've ever gone through something similar, please accept my sympathies. Having your space besieged by noise, especially when you're thisclose to drifting into dreamland, is both physically and emotionally exhausting. 

I have little control over what my neighbors decide to do: we've talked to them, we've contacted management repeatedly, and we've filed a complaint with the police, so we've kind of exhausted our options. Thus, I'm trying to focus instead on what we can do and what our options are.

The first thing we're trying to figure out is whether we want to stick out our lease or break it early. 

If we stay, I will probably continue to have nightly heart palpitations as the music starts blasting through my floor just as I've closed my eyes (or - probably a better choice - I will force myself to take up yoga and meditation). Money-wise, though, it's a strong option, and lately I've been surprised at just how motivated I am by our financial goals. So sticking it out is certainly not out of the question.

If we break it early, we'll have to pay rent until the landlord finds a new tenant. We're fairly certain he'd be able to do so within a few months at most. Our apartment is in an excellent location, has some gorgeous views of the surrounding hills, and is reasonably priced (all huge reasons we decided to lease this abode in the first place, and all reasons we were hoping to stick around for several years). But we'd be on the hook for up to $7000 in rental payments, and that's... a lot of money.

Regardless, we know we'll be out of here by June, so the question at that point is whether we should rent elsewhere or purchase a house.

The argument for purchasing is that we're committed to living in this town: we're not going anywhere. It's likely that a mortgage would be equivalent to (or possibly even less than) what we'd be paying in rent. The problem is that the housing market here is limited, expensive, and exceedingly competitive. The average price of a single family home is around $400K, and many folks offer to pay in cash to sweeten their bids (that is so far outside the realm of my own experience and abilities that I can't really wrap my mind around it). Our credit scores are excellent, our income is solid, and we're eligible for a VA loan, but we don't have a lot of money for a down payment. If we do decide to buy, we're likely looking at months of searching, multiple offers, and multiple rejections.

The whole thing sounds like a complete circus, and not in a good way. Part of me is so annoyed with the current housing market that I don't want to deal with it at all.

If we opt to rent again, we'll definitely be looking at townhouses or single-family homes. No more shared walls on all sides for us. Rent for such properties is expensive, and for what we need, it's likely to exceed a mortgage payment. There's no doubt that rent would increase on a yearly basis. On the other hand, we won't have to deal with maintaining or fixing up a new home, and we can find something that comes with all necessary appliances. 

Sometimes I wish we weren't so invested in such an expensive community, but here we are. We love our town. These are the choices.

If you have advice for us, I'd love to hear from you. Have you ever been in a similar situation? What was your course of action?

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