The 1 year lease for my apartment here in Cambridge is up on December 31st. When I moved upstairs from the basement, I convinced the landlord to leave my $950 a month rent alone. He said "OK, for now". So now that it's time to renew my lease, the landlord wants to increase it to $1100 a month. No thanks. Not for a 450 sq ft studio apartment!
I spent a few weeks searching for a new apartment but there was nothing in Cambridge with a sensible price to size ratio. The rental agent who found my current apartment for me, Jim from Inman Realty, told me about a place in Arlington that was about to go on the market. I do all kinds of computer work for Inman Realty and Jim and I have become friends over the past year.
The place in Arlington is about 4 miles from where I work. It's huge! Over 1200 sq ft! It's a two bedroom apartment on the first floor with two off-street parking spots, a back yard, use of the basement, and a porch. But I've been spoiled living so close to work (1/2 a mile) so I told Jim for the price I would be paying in Arlington, I wanted something closer to Central Square.
That same evening, I went to look at an apartment for rent by owner. It was in Davis Square, about 2 miles from where I work. But for $1100 a month, the place was a DUMP! I spent the next 6 hours thinking about the place Jim showed me a few hours earlier. Jim told me the landlord wanted to rent it for $1400 a month and that the second floor of the same house was already rented for $1500 a month.
Long story short, Jim was able to get the landlord to rent it to me for $1200 a month. I move in on January 1st. The lease was signed yesterday and I already gave them my deposit. How do I justify going from $950 a month rent to $1200 a month? Well, I don't entirely have a choice. If I stay where I am, my rent will increase to $1100 regardless. So for an extra $100 a month I can get a place that's 3 - 4 times the size with off-street parking and a back yard. I would be stupid not to take the place in Arlington!
Congrats! on the step up. Can’t wait for the pictures of the new place. Hopefully there won’t be a blizzard on moving day.
Hah! Blizzard or no blizzard, I’ll be moving! The new place is huge… it’s going to feel weird having so much space. The trick is to use that extra space to better organize what I already have, instead of buying more stuff to fill the space!
Shouldn’t be too difficult. 🙂
You’ll fill it up in no time. I’ll help, what’s the new mailing address? I have lots of stuff that you might find usefull or not. I’ll let you decide.
Attn: George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
Thanks DJT!
a house is just a place to store shit in. the bigger the house the more shit you can fill shit in. w0rd. i hate america. thank you bush.
I like to think of a house as a place to DO stuff, rather than a place to STORE stuff. The problem seems to be that we simply don’t DO enough and since accumulating stuff is a lot easier than doing something creative, we end up filling the empty space with STUFF.