Remember how I mentioned that we were trying to save some money for things like house purchases and whatnot? Well, quicker than even we anticipated, developments have… er, developed.

It seems that by the end of April we will be occupying a brand new (that is, never been lived-in) condo just up the street from our current digs. It seems kind of odd, I suppose, to mention houses and then days later find yourself on the verge of once again renting something that is decidedly not a house. But it makes sense, I swear.

Part of our wishy-washy talks of moves that coincided with my new job was the element of housing price versus commute. Specifically, we pay a pretty low rent (for California and especially for Bay Area-accessible California) right now. However, I commute for about 120 miles round trip four days a week so at first we thought the obvious thing was to move closer to where I work. The problem is that places that are very close to my work are either prohibitively expensive or, for those places we looked that were in our price range, shabby and potentially usafe.

There are places in between, but the price issue becomes a bigger factor there; many of the more eastern bedroom communities are nice and relatively safe but likewise demand higher rents. The tradeoff between the increased housing costs and the commute relief was generally a wash at best.

Now there are a couple of things that we looked at as sub-motivating factors. Things like the fact that in our seven-plus years of marriage we have had our own washer and dryer exactly once, for less than a year. Also, our rent is unlikely to stay as reasonable as it is now for much longer, especially since the complex has decided to move to a for-sale model sometime in the next year or so and while our apartment is nice enough, there is no way I would ever actually want to own it. There are a couple other minor considerations such as the atrocious parking situation and the fact that one of the buildings blew up not so long ago. You know, that kind of thing.

But with the pricing and the timing and everything else, it seemed like it was never going to quite work the way we hoped. So we more or less gave up and decided we’d stay as long as we could and hopefully find a way to save up and maybe buy something old or in need of many repairs.

As is so often the case, once we stopped looking the answer sort of fell into our laps. I happened to drive by one of those dancing sign people waving an oversized arrow that pointed at some condos down a street a block or two up the road from our complex that I never would have considered investigating for that kind of housing. I mentioned it to Nik and we had a little time to kill on Saturday afternoon so we drove by to check it out.

It turns out the condos are brand new and they’re trying to get them all leased out by the middle of April. It was a hurried time table, especially for what we were looking for, but we toured a couple of the units and found them to be really nice. We discussed it a bit and agreed to go home, fill out the online application, talk about it, sleep on it and return the next afternoon with a deposit assuming we hadn’t changed our minds or there were no problems with our application. Which is exactly what we did and the next day we were still a go although Nik had begun debating our initial thought of going with the three-story, three bedroom model for the smaller two-story two bedroom. After a couple more tours we decided on the two bedroom, and handed over the holding deposit.

Maybe you’re asking why I’d move from a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment to a two bedroom one and a half bathroom condo? Here’s why: For one thing, the place is new. Our apartment is probably twenty years old and despite a couple of renovations, it pretty much feels twenty years old. The condo also has more square footage, by a little bit. Another thing is that the condo doesn’t share a ceiling with anyone else. Two walls I can handle, but I don’t really care for tiptoeing around or dealing with the bowling-alley fun of being the downstairs tenant. The condo also comes with brand new appliances and allows interior decorating that includes the option to paint the walls. I’ve been staring at white walls for seven and a half years now while I watch my friends and family members do marvelous things with their rooms. I’ve even helped them in some cases. Well, I want a piece of that action.

Oh, and there is one other little thing. The condo has a garage. Did you catch that? I’m about to have a garage. This is big for me. Huge.

On top of all the amenities and so forth, the other positive factors are that the new place is offering a special that gives you the first month rent-free. Since we’re making the move on fairly short notice it works out that we can have two places through the end of April. We’d have to give 30 days notice at our place now and pay for April’s rent anyway, but since we’re not being charged for April at the condo place we wind up basically having a month to move in, at our leisure. And once we do start paying rent on the condo, it’s less than two hundred dollar more than we pay now. Dude, I would pay $200 just to have the garage.

And then there’s the small matter of the flexibility and opportunity the condo affords us. See it turns out the owner really wanted to sell the condos. But he had the misfortune of having the development complete during one of the crappiest housing markets in years. From what I gather, everyone bought houses back a couple years ago when the interest rates were ideal and now they aren’t selling that well. To compensate, the owner decided to rent the condos for a year or two and then offer them for sale to the tenants (hopefully when the housing market is better; one thing about California, you can pretty much count on housing markets to improve eventually). But they’re also offering a sort of retroactive rent-to-own plan where a percentage of the rent you’ve already paid for that year or two will be set aside and used as part of the offer for the condo purchase. And of course it will be optional at that time.

What that means for us is that our rent won’t necessarily be wasted money, which is a concept I can completely get behind. It also means that even if it doesn’t work out, it’s not a big deal since we’re technically just doing what we’ve always done. And if it does work, we end up getting what we had almost given up hope of ever having which is something tangible that we could hopefully leverage into something bigger down the road as needs warrant.

In any case, I’m pretty excited. I know it doesn’t much address the commute issue but honestly I’ve been doing it for three or four months now and it isn’t so bad, especially with my current schedule. If there is one positive thing about the grave shifts, it’s the smooth, traffic-less drive. Besides, at this point I might as well concede that this town is where we live and while not without its flaws, it has friends and family and a certain familiarity that make it perfectly tolerable.

As a second part of our busy day we also got our taxes done. Whether good or bad, we were pleasantly surprised by how much our returns are this year. I suppose that means our W4s aren’t as optimally configured as they could be but what is done is done so now it looks like we’ll be able to do some of the furniture swapping as part of the move and still have a nice chunk to put into savings as well. The key is going to be avoiding the temptation to buy the biggest HDTV you’ve ever seen instead of stuff like a couch that doesn’t cause active humiliation whenever other humans are forced to set eyes (or worse, posteriors) upon it, but I’m sure Nik and her icy stare will help sidestep that landmine.

In fact the only bad news I can even think of is that I guess the staircase is too small to allow one to maneuver a queen-sized box spring up the stairs so you have to have one of those split boxes instead, and from what I understand they aren’t all that cheap. Granted, the one we currently have has been frustratingly used by the cat as a secondary scratching post as we’ve operated without an actual bed frame for three or more years now which puts the box spring in easy access of Dixie’s claws, but it’s hardly something I’d replace if given the choice.

This pending move has also brought about an even greater intensity with the big “stuff we no longer need” fire sale. This includes a few items added to the list:

• Computer desk. For those who’ve been to our place, this is the big black desk with hanging file cabinet, roll-out keyboard tray and overhead bookshelf. We’re going to trade down to a smaller computer desk since I no longer have or use sixteen computers simultaneously therefore the behemoth is not needed. If you’re interested, I have a truck and will just haul it to the dumps unless someone wants it so it’s going for free, and I’ll bring it to you assuming you don’t live in Utah or something. If you haven’t seen it, I should mention that it currently has a bunch of really geeky Linux stickers and junk plastered all over it, but I can try to remove them or paint over them if that’s going to be a problem.
• Entertainment center. We have a new TV stand in the living room and the old one (which was a gift from HB) probably won’t make the move with us. I kind of doubt HB wants it back so if I can pass it along, I’d be happy to. Same deal applies: I’ll bring it to you gratis if you just say the word. It’s possible HB would rather have it back than see it junked, but he gave it to me free so it would just be wrong to try and make a buck off it.
• Microwave oven. We have a white GE microwave in perfect working condition but the new place comes with an over-the-counter one included so we have no use for the standalone. If you want it, lemme know. Microwaves are pretty cheap so I’ll just give it to ya, but if you want it delivered (it fits in a Civic, I mean… how lazy are you?), I’ll do it for the gas money.
• Green leather sofa. Hahahahahahahaha! Just kidding. I wouldn’t inflict that thing on my worst enemy.

Oh, and since we get to move in fairly leisurely over the course of a month, we probably won’t need to even rent a truck much less beg our friends to waste a whole Saturday on manual labor.