Category Archives: Housing

Can You Really Negotiate Rent Prices

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You might be wondering can you really negotiate rent prices

A landlord has the right to increase your rental rate once your lease expires. At that point, you will, of course, have had a heads up of this happening. So should you sit around and just accept it or move out? No, you should try to negotiate your rent. Negotiation can be done based on monetary value as well as time saving factors. The worse that can happen is your landlord says no.

Review Your Good Tenancy with Them

Talk to your landlord about how much you appreciate your living situation. You are a good tenant, and it is worth their while to keep you there. You pay your rent on time, the place is in tip-top condition, you’re helpful to your neighbors, and are friendly to all passersby’s. Your landlord has never had any problems out of you, so why increase your rent making it unfavorable to you, which may force you to move?

Pay Up Early

Another rent negotiation strategy is to pay your rent early. Think like a landlord for a moment. There is nothing better than receiving their rent on time, except receiving it early! The earlier they can turn in money towards their mortgage, the faster they can pay off that loan. If they own the building outright, they can apply this money towards other expenses they have.

Sign an Extended Lease

Agreeing to an extended lease can go a long way. Your landlord will appreciate knowing they have a dependable tenant that pays on time. So instead of a standard one-year lease, agree to two years.

Show Your Landlord It’s to Their Advantage That You Stay

When a unit turns over, it’s not as simple as just a new tenant moving right on in. Your landlord has much to do to get the apartment rented again. Point out these expenses and timetables to your landlord if you were to move:

  • Advertising expenses for the unit’s opening
  • Screening applicants
  • Repairing and cleaning the apartment
  • Taking the time to show the apartment to multiple applicants

When you point out how they would spend between $400-$900 on all of this, keeping your rent as is or raising it to no more than $30 a month ($360) is a killer savings for them.

Don’t Be Over Excited

If you love a place don’t let on to the landlord that you do.  If they feel you want it you will lose some negotiating power.  Always look at places only when you check your emotions at the door. This will give you the opportunity to compare properties against each other and negotiate a better deal.

The above four strategies should help you negotiate the rent on your unit. If you both come to a compromise, you’ll save time and money.

What do you think?

Chase

A Frugal Home Purchasing Plan On Saving Money For A Dream House

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Small House

Cousin’s Dream House

I recently wrote about a path to get rich for the average wage earner (like me) to follow.  While I play a good financial game, this is one of the areas in my past financial path where I didn’t do the best that I could have.

For a few years, I rented a 1 room apartment for a few hundred dollars a month.  This path (renting the one-room apartment) wasn’t bad, but then shortly after I got married, we rented a small apartment for around $410/month.  Even though $410 was a great price, instead we should have tried to build up some equity!

We should have purchased an affordable “cheap” house that we could have built up equity with instead.  Now in our defense, we didn’t know how long we were going to be in the neighborhood (let alone state).  It turns out we spend about three or so years there.

Contrast this with my wife’s cousin Anna.  Anna and her husband didn’t go to college and decided to start working after high school.  After a few years, Anna and her husband decided to purchase a mobile home and save money.  Anna scored a pretty good job, while her husband tried to start a few businesses while they were young.  He failed often, but never gave up, and eventually his last business attempt succeeded.

This was their Housing Plan:

They decided that they would buy a mobile home.  Since their payments on the mobile home were low, they also started to sock money away for their dream home.  Their annual income was inconsistent, but they always managed to save some money for their dream home each year (some years they saved more than others).  After 7 years they were able to sell their mobile home and buy their dream house just before they decided to start a family.  Their new house was in a cute suburb in a good city with an above average educational system.  Their two-story house is a little over 1,850 square feet, but compared to their mobile home the new house is huge.

Doesn’t sound too incredible huh.  Well, here is the interesting part!  They were able to pay off over 60% of the cost of the house, so their mortgage was relatively low.  They did this while making less than $45,000.  Their property size is about 1/2 acre and the kids have plenty of room to play (especially versus the mobile home in the mobile home park).

Since their mortgage expense was relatively low, they opted for the 15-year mortgage instead of the 30-year mortgage.  Anna’s husband’s business is still growing, so they are increasing their income every year.  But even if his venture doesn’t pan out, they can still afford (barely) the house payment with Anna’s salary.

My wife’s cousin had a better housing plan than I did, and although they had to sacrifice for a few years, the result turned out to be a huge win for them!

Would you sacrifice your housing situation for 7 years to buy your dream home?  What do you think about their housing plan?

Cheers,

MR

Pros and Cons of Building a House

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McMansion

McMansion

When my wife and I were looking to buy a house, at first we just wanted to buy an existing house.  Our theory was that it would be cheaper.

After over 6 months of causal searching, we started coming to the realization that building a house was almost as cheap as buying an existing house, at least where we live.  So we decided to build a new house instead of buying an existing home.

Below are some of the Pros and Cons of building a house that we’ve experienced.

Pros of Building a House

  • New houses are safer!  The inspection process that counties impose really do help with the safety of the house and make sure that the utility systems (electrical, gas) are safe.
  • New Appliances such as water tanks and the furnace last longer because they are brand new!
  • The roof tiles on the roof will last longer because they are new.
  • And the biggest advantage is that you won’t immediately need to redo a room that you hate!  I’ve seen this happen way too often!  A family buys a house that’s $5,000 cheaper than building a new house but then spends $10,000 to replace fixtures that they hate because they are so out of date.  Or they will totally redo a room like a kitchen…
  • New houses are practically-repair free for the first 10 years.
  • Highly reduced chance of the house having black mold.
  • Although not recommended because of resale potential, you can design your house to look any way that you want!
Spaceship House

Spaceship House

Cons of Building a House

  • Your new house location may be in an “off the beaten” path location or in located in areas that aren’t as convenient as older nicer locations.
  • Time delays, you may plan to move in by a certain date, but that can easily be bumped back by the builder because of circumstances.  This happens often.
  • While mold won’t be an issue, the new house will be a cocktail of new chemical smells from new carpet, glue, plastics, paints, stains, etc…

We were even able to change the plans on the house design after they started building.  This was nice because if you are quick enough, a good builder will accommodate your wishes without adding much to the cost.  If the changes are too complex though, you will have to pay and the time delay could be extended substantially!

If you have any additional points that I may have missed, please share them below in the comments section!

Thanks,

-MR