Now that we're in this holding pattern of waiting for order picking (this should happen the beginning of the year), I cannot seem to settle down. Every day, I wander through the house picking out things I need to get rid of before we go, or trying to decide how best to packed things to make it easier for the movers (also, we found if you go out of your way to get things ready when they come, they do an awesome job with it - totally worth all the work we put into the last move!). I keep telling myself I really have three months before it's even remotely important to buckle down, but I keep obsessing over it.
In truth, though, the thing most on my mind is getting housing. We don't plan on living on base unless we get sent to Hawaii or something like that. We want control of our money this time, and I'm not too big on the trend in military housing to charge utilities on top of your entire BAH. That's crazy when you consider that by virtue of rank, you could be spending twice as much for your place than your neighbor with the exact same apartment. There is no accounting for that at all, and by the time we left WA, we were paying for our tiny two bedroom what we could have paid for an entire house out in town.
So, no more military housing for us. That does kind of leave me in a dilemma, though. I am realizing that the last time I really had to find a place to live was over ten years ago. I got it through an ad in the newspaper, albeit their online version. Clearly, this isn't really how people do that sort of thing these days.
I guess I will have to look at Craigslist? I have almost no experience with that as it's not exactly an option here. Or is a realtor a way to find a house to rent? Do realtors even deal with rentals? I kind of like the idea of going and seeing a couple places at once, but maybe you can only do that when you are looking to buy a place.
And buying a place is not what we're going to do. At least not yet. Hopefully in ten years, we'll know where we want to land and be ready to get something. We'll see. It's tough to imagine us as anything but wanderers.
P.S. Totally random, mostly unrelated fact: Apparently, if you had a VA loan, you can get a VA refinance. With interest rates so low now, not a bad idea to look into.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Thinking About Moving
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2 sonar pings:
Some realtors will help you find a rental. You can sometimes go through rental agencies. Look for management companies. The house that we are currently renting is through a management company, but I found it looking in the want ads. I did not know where to look and was trying to find one from out of state. The internet will probably be your best resource. It is hard. Will you get temporary base housing until you find a house to rent?
Well, ideally we will only move once, so don't plan on moving into military housing. Plus, you can't really do that temporarily - now that it's privatized, you have to sign a year long lease in most places. We'd rather find a place and stay put until the next transfer.
I plan on taking a trip to look for a place, but if that doesn't work out, we'll just have to live in a hotel until we get it worked out. Hopefully, we won't burn through the travel money before it happens.
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