Apartments update
‘Kay, it’s like this...
In conversation with John last week, he was asking about the financial feasibility of staying in the current apartment by myself. Unfortunately, one of the issues isn’t just how much I make, but I have some debt and the more cheaply I live, the more I can get out of that debt. But shoving that aside for now, here’s the situation.
lucyruthe and I have been paying $695 for our current place. Now, the market is soft and good renters are valuable, so our current rental management obviously wants to keep both lucyruthe and I. Hell, if they play their cards right, they get two places rented instead of one. They’ve already been good to lucyruthe in working out the finances and timing of her transition. And they’ve offered to “work with me” if they didn’t find something for me at the end of this month, by which they mean they’ll reduce my rent to something I can afford while they continue to try and find something suitable for me. Also a very nice offer, certainly.
Going back to last week’s conversation with John, he pointed out that a little over two years ago when our landlord found out that John was losing both roommates within a couple of months, Ray chose not to raise John’s rent since he’d be scraping to stay there. Two years later, Ray still hasn’t raised John’s rent. And my current landlords were offering to reduce my rent temporarily. This merely reinforces how valuable good renters are, especially right now. He suggested finding out if they’d consider reducing my rent for a longer amount of time, since I’d be paying for the place by myself.
Now, this past Friday, I saw two apartments with Jackie, the office manager. Neither would work for me. I just have too much stuff. Ideally, I’d like to pay $550, but good luck finding a place that can fit me and all my shit for that price. After seeing the second place, I sprang the idea. I asked if there was any chance that Joe, the owner, would consider lowering my rent. She asked what amount I wanted to pay, and I said around $575, since I was hoping for $550 but avoiding the hassle and expense of moving would be worth something to me so I could pay more per month. But I also pointed out that this could also have a possible upside for them as well. My reasoning was that first, every time you change renters, there are some costs incurred with minor upkeep and such, and I think these guys almost always have their units open for a month to do the changeover process. But also, in six months, they’d “lose” $720 in rent money against the original price, but they’d lose $695 every month it sat vacant. And I said in that sense there was an element of risk involved, as they could rent the place in a month, or it could sit open for half a year and there was no way to really know that. But regardless, they’d be keeping a good, reliable renter and I was willing to commit to a year and a half lease, if that made a difference. Jackie said that she’d obviously have to ask Joe, as he’s the owner, but that she thought that he wouldn’t go below $600. And I told her that I had no idea what would happen, but I figured it certainly couldn’t hurt to ask.
Later that afternoon, she called and left a message on my cell phone while I was showering and like a dumb-ass, I didn’t notice till later that evening. The message was vague and said that she talked to Joe about it and I should call her, but didn’t give a definite “no.” So I had to wait all weekend to find out.
This morning I called and Jackie told me Joe said he’d be willing to reduce the rent to $600, if I sign a lease till the end of June in either 2005 or 2006. I wasn’t really expecting to get the place for $575, but was hoping for him to come up to $595. So, there’s a very good chance that I will stay here. I may look at a couple more apartments this week, just to satisfy my curiosity. Honestly, $600 is still more than I think I should be paying. But there are going to precious few one bedrooms that hold a candle to this place and they’re unlikely to be going for less rent. And I hate moving.
There’s going to be some emotional hangover to actually staying here, of course. But honestly, so much of those difficulties would be there if I moved, anyway. lucyruthe is moving out this weekend, regardless of whether I end up staying here or not. That’ll be hard, and I’ll have lots to work through in the coming months, but I really like this place.
For any Convergence people who were concerned on my behalf about the idea of the lease expiring at the end of June: don’t worry, I could still move out later, I’d just go month-to-month until the end of July or whenever. I checked. It would take a pretty catastrophic event to let moving screw up my Cinema Rex/Convergence prep.