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So my wife and I are back on track with seeking our own place to live. If you have not been following my blog you likely would not know we had some set backs in this area. To fill you in we live with my wife’s parents so we could pay down debt and allow me to complete my first degree. It has been a successes since we are completely debt free, with the exception of student loans, and my first degree is complete. It feels incredible to own our rather nice car and have a zero balance on all loans and credit cards. It feels even better to have a savings account and a decent career.

Our next challenge is to relocate to a semi long term place of our own. We need room for kids, a work space foe me and our normal living space. I have not mentioned this but I will start getting used to it, my family and I live in the Midwest. More specifically we live in the Madison Wisconsin area. Madison is s wonderful town filled with some of the coolest people and businesses I have even had the pleasure to know. The problem is that like everywhere else it is expensive to live based on average income. I am the only income earner in the house because my wife wants to stay home with our kids. It is a decision we made together and we want it to stay that way. It is a matter of finding a place that meets our needs but will not burden us financially. So far we ruled out buying for now. It was a hard thing to accept but we have to wait.

The reason for this is a huge list so I will share the main points. In the area we live renting is more expensive than owning many homes now. So why rent? Well the market is though and getting the money and loan approval needed to get a home is a challenge. Sure we have money in our savings but that is for emergencies and worse case scenarios like losing a job. On paper we meet all that is needed to get a loan and buy a home. What we do not have is the extra $20k of our own money to use as a down payment. We also do not have the time or money we need to fix up a lower priced home. If we want to get a larger home even in this economy we still have to get some thing that requires a little extra love and attention.

That is why we decided to lean towards renting. We made a list of things we have to have in order to be comfortable moving in. The list is two parts so far, our must haves and our wish list, here they are;

Must haves

–         A Yard (kids need space to play a close by park would work OK too)

–         Washer & Dryer (needed for our cloth diapers)

–         Basement (we live where there a plenty of tornados)

–         Minimum 2 bedrooms (our kids share a room but I would like an office since I do some work form home)

Wish list

–         An office

–         Garage (car port)

–         Dishwasher

 

I realize in some places of the world this seems like a crazy amount but where I live it is not far fetched. The biggest issue we have encountered is that rental prices have spiked almost 40% in our area in just one year. That is largely due to the amount of people who have given up or lost their homes and started to rent. Property owners have started to take advantage of the situation and it is hard to blame them. Business is big for them and they want to get what they can form their business. On the other side I want to tell them to stop it since we cannot find a decent place now. Some things have started to some up as warmer weather approaches but we still have nothing. I would still think about buying since that would be ideal but unless someone is feeling 20,000 dollar generous I do not see that happening.

We are going to keep looking since we need a home and our welcome is wearing thin where we are now. I know my mother-in-law would have us forever but we do not want to stay any more. Our kids both want to have a new home too since we have such confined space. It is a real shame though I have seen some beautiful old homes for sale that we could afford payments on and I would love to fix up.

 

Thank you for reading,

                          Animockery