Friday, April 30, 2010

The House hunt !!!

Ufff... The whole week was quiet hectic for me. Ask me why. We received a mail from our apartment management reminding us that our apartment lease is ending in a couple of months and we had to decide on either extending the lease or vacating the apartment. And that if we choose to vacate we'll have to give them a 60 day notice so that they'll start advertising for the apartment and other stuff. And it looked like our rents are increased if we choose to extend. And we had only four days left before we finally decide on this. So we thought we'll look for options outside. And the house hunting job fell on me. So the first thing I do, after packing B (my hubby) to work, is to log into all the apartment rental sites and start my search. I had to keep in mind the rent, the reviews about the community, the amenities that are available, easy access to all transits, this, that, foo, faa.... And finally listed down some apartments that we thought will be comfortable for us. And I started taking apartment tours on each of them. Some days I had to check out more that three apartments, come back home note down the things like rent, available facilities, hidden charges etc., in an excel sheet and discuss it with B at the end of the day. After all this, we somehow weren't satisfied with the apartments that I checked. And the D-Day came. Today we had to tell the management about our decision. It was definitely tough to move out of an apartment that we enjoyed staying so long. We had everything we needed. It was a wonderful community. We had nothing to complain about so far. Right from library to grocery to shopping malls, everything is at walkable distance. Moreover I had developed an intimate bond with my desi neighbor. And so we finally decided to extend the lease in our same apartment, even though we had to compromise on the hiked rent. So I went down to the leasing office to tell our decision. Before that we wanted to ask if there are any other apartments that is currently vacant for us to move in. And it so happened that, there was one vacant on the same building but a few floor high above. And the best part is, it comes with more space and less rent. Hoz that :) I was like yaayyyyy !!! And yes, we obviously opted to move into that apartment. After all this house hunting we ended up moving into an apartment in the very same building. But I totally have nothing to regret. This whole house search was a new experience for me and definitely worth it. I got to know what exactly property mangers do every other day and understood the whole rent manipulation that is being done when an apartment is vacant. Baaahhhh. Whatever, we finally found a house and we definitely like it :)

13 comments:

  1. Great at last I've one well known housing broker/agent here in this country.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How incredible to move to a bigger apartment in the same building for less rent, how is that possible? I recognize all the sentiments linked house hunting, I went through them myself a few years back.;) But I actually did buy a house, my *white house on a hill*.;)
    Have a lovely weekend,
    xo

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow! Congrats!!!! See people get lucky.. and they tell me it's a bad life! LOL!!

    Enjoy the new apartment!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. oh... btw.. can you help with the blog background thing.. I don't know how to use a pic I have on my hard drive as a background image for my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Zuzana : Absolutely. I guess we just got lucky to get such an offer of a bigger apartment for a lower rent:) And I should tell you Zuzana, your "White house on a hill" is beautiful. And Im sure you have a lot of sentiments attached to it :P

    @Sameera : Thanks Sameera. And yeah, about the blog background, I dont think it is possible to choose a picture from our hard drive. We just have to choose from the available lot. I know that not cool, may be blogger will come up with that option too soon. Lets wait for the best to come :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glad u got a house to ur liking with less rent :):) Best wishes and may ur stay in the new apt with ur family be filled with happiness and only happiness:):)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tell me all about house-hunting and the likes. We have done it but the satisfaction that comes after getting one is incomparable.

    Congrats and all the best for the brand new experience.

    Hope all is well :)

    Joy always,
    Susan

    ReplyDelete
  8. Life is a learning experience! Have a happy stay at your new place.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Interesting. Lucky to get a bigger apartment for a lesser price. Important is that place is liked.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @ Ms.Chitchat, Susan, Shahana, Indrani : Thank you ladies. Im really excited in moving into our new apartment:)

    @Rajesh : Definitely lucky :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Good decision...lucky with rent too.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your valuable comments.