Found an apartment!

Last week I looked at several apartments in Cambridge -- I would say between 10 - 15 apartments all together. One of the apartments I looked at was in a really nice neighborhood, on a dead end street, with parking and utilities included. The lady who owned the house was originally going to rent it for $1200, but Jim, the rental agent who showed me the apartment, talked her down to $1100 and told me he was pretty sure she would go to $1000 a month if I took it "as is". It was a really nice place and even though it was 2.5 miles from my office, about a 35 - 40 minute walk, the price was unbeatable for that neighborhood; so I told him I'll take it.

I continued to look at apartments the next morning, meeting with rental agents left and right, however I couldn't help but notice the connection I felt with Jim, as if I'd met him before. When we had met at the apartment, we talked about real estate and how you can't go wrong with buying real estate for long-term investment. I told him that I own three multi-family's in Lowell and he mentioned he was thinking of buying some property in Lawrence, a neighboring town to Lowell.

When I met Jim in his office to fill out the rental application, I mentioned that I do computer service repair on the side. He told me that their office really needed an IT guy because their current IT person had recently been extremely unreliable. He introduced me to the owner of the office, a 53 year old lady. She was very nice, but firm and noticeably hardened by the business world. A few minutes later, Jim told me that she grew up in Dracut, which is the town next to where I grew up, and that she started buying property in Cambridge when she was 18. She and her husband now own over 170 apartments in Cambridge alone. When Jim asked where in Pelham I grew up, I told him right on Little Island Pond. He laughed and told me that the owners brother has a house on that lake and that he goes to visit him every other weekend.

I couldn't help but be amazed that of all the people in Cambridge, I happen to meet such a group of people; someone who has frequently visited the very same lake and town I grew up in, and whose boss grew up in the town next to Pelham, and that the bosses brother owns a house on the same lake I grew up on! Oh, and that they need an IT person to help them with their computers, something that will provide me with a little extra cash after I leave the Aerva office -- what are the chances?

Anyway, the original apartment I said yes to did not work out. The landlord decided to fix it up and rent it for $1200. So Jim showed me another place in East Cambridge, which was big, but the neighborhood wasn't that nice. It also was a little far from the office, about 2 miles. Jim told me about a basement apartment very close to Central Square, and said that the girl who lives there now hasn't paid her rent in a few months because of an issue with squirrels, which were somehow getting into the ceiling. He told me that her dad was the building inspector and that the landlord of the building. The girl is moving out January 1st and the landlord just wants to get someone in there who will work with him to fix the squirrel problem. I took a look at the place yesterday and it is awesome. Even though its a basement apartment, the foundation has been cut to allow full size windows. There are hardwood floors throughout and the bathroom is all tile, including the entire shower. The girl who's living there now took very good care of the place, because it looks as if it was just renovated. I used my car to check how far the place was from my office, and its exactly 0.6 miles -- just over half a mile. Thats about a 5 - 10 minute walk!

Here's a satellite picture of the house, and here is the route from the apartment to my office. When I met with Jim to look at the apartment, the landlord was there with him. He was an older guy, probably around 70 years old. He told me how he bought that house for $68,000 in 1968. The house is now valued at over $1.5 million. He bought another house a few blocks away, which was boarded up at the time, for $1675 -- its now valued at around $1 million.

I'm probably going to move in on January 1st, or sometime around there. I'll take pictures of the place and post it up when I get a chance. I'm hoping there is already an Internet connection there, as I have not asked about that yet. The month of January is going to be extremely busy, and important, for Aerva and I'm right in the middle of it all. I have four days this week to work on three apartments and hopefully get them in rent condition. After that, while I'm working in Cambridge, I'll have to coordinate with my brother over the phone and hopefully get the apartments rented. I'm going to try listing them on CraigsList before posting ad's in the newspaper.

Happy Christmas.

(Why merry? All the other holidays start with happy!)