Yesh! Bad news and maybe good news about my apartment.

The bad news: My landlady called and she said she's toying with the idea of selling this apartment. Crap!

The good news though is the following:

1. The economy is such that people just aren't buying right now.
2. This place isn't worth what she's planning on asking.
3. Since the economy is so bad, she may have to wait a substantial bit of time to be able to sell this place and make a decent profit.
4. There are quite a few apartments for sale in my complex, larger and selling or have sold for less.

So, where does this leave me? Well, for starters my landlady said she's still just thinking about it. She may not do anything for now, plus if she did find someone to buy this place, she'd tell them she already has a tenant with a 3 year lease.

Also, the fact that I know she's mulling this over gives me the advantage of doing some planning of my own.

I've already been working on cutting back on my expenses. With all of my cutbacks, once I finish paying off one old credit card, In November to be exact, I'll have an extra $200 a month to sock away. Plus, downgrading my health insurance saves me another $200 a month. I'm getting a bonus in October, so I can sock that away as well. I'm paying off other credit cards with the credit counselors, which will hopefully help my credit.

If and when she does manage to sell this place, I will have hopefully enough money to get into another rental or buy my own place outright.

Ideally, I'd love to be able to buy my own place. I'm not too worried about finding a pet friendly place. The point of my saving as much as I can is so I can afford to move into a pet friendly place or as I said above, buy my own place.

I'm telling myself not to think of this as a bad thing. I think I've got enough time to plan this all out.

Man, it's always something.:frustrated:

You are certainly looking at things the right way :thumbs up

Events like this can go either way and you need to have a plan...

Would your landlady work a deal for you to buy it or is it something you would want to buy? I know a former landlord of mine gave me first dibs on a condo I lived in ( a really good deal actually), but I hated the place...it was noisy.

That sucks. Or, it doesn't. Depends on how you are looking at things. It sounds like you have a good handle on it.
Is there a chance your mortgage payment could be less than what you pay for rent? I know up here it normally works that way. It may be worth your while to try to do something. But you have lots of time. :thumbs up

well mortgage plus up keep plus insurance

Yeah, I think this is just the kick in the butt I needed to really bear down and save save save! I'll either just buy my own place or find a newer place to rent.

This isn't a bad location, I love it actually. But, this apartment is old. The buildings were built in the early 70's. The landlady said she bought it for $130K and they put $20K. I can't imagine where they put that money, because the place looks very dated. She told me she would not sell it for less than $180K. No way is this place worth that. I'd have to put at least $40 or $50K into it just to update it. Then you have the issue of the plumbing. They are always haveing to cut the water in the building to fix an issue. Not to mention, if I ever wanted to take a bath, I'd have to turn the water on in the morning, just so in the evening I'd have enough water in the tub to soak.

There are brand new buildings that were built in my area with apartments starting at $200/$250K. Why buy a place that is old and needs work, when you can buy a brand new place?

My best friend was looking at some public records at some apartments that sold here in a couple of my buildings and they were sold for way less. Not to mention, I was looking at some houses a few miles away from where I live but still fairly close, and those houses were way cheaper. Of course you'd have to put a bit of money into those, but they are houses, with land, with 2 and 3 bedrooms.

I think the fact that the economy is so bad, and she said she's not set her mind up yet, will help buy me a bit of time.

Right now, my plan is to save as much as I can for the next year. I have been getting bonuses at work every quarter, and I expect to get a pretty good tax return. I'm looking at hopefully an extra $200 a month savings because of changing my insurance. Bar any emergency type situation, I should be able to save enough to move me out of here next year some time.

Keep your fingers crossed folks that my landlady can't find a buyer before I'm ready to leave!:fingerscr