Rent or Buy - Finding Your Why

Looking out over my balcony of the penthouse views of the Rocket City, bachelor living at its finest. I have made it! At least that what I thought back about in my first apartment back in 2011. I recently moved to Huntsville, AL and I finally got the funds to graduate from my friends couch to getting my “own place”.

So about those penthouse views, well they were more like a view of the community pool. A pool filled mostly with the community kids. The apartment was “ok”. It was convenient to work, relatively cheap, and most of the neighbors seemed pretty cool, however the apartment was on the third floor. Just imagine carrying groceries up the stairs on a weekly basis. The walls were paper thin and I could hear the couple next door routine Sunday afternoon arguments. It usually consisted of the guy raises his voice, the lady screaming, a physical altercation, then the head board knocking. This happened every Sunday like clockwork until the guy was busted for drugs. With the one set of bad neighbors I was still ok at staying there then something happen. The apartment raised my rent. That was the final straw. I could not continue staying in a place that I did not enjoy living, where they could raise my rent whenever they seem appropriate, and at the end of the day I am paying for something that will never be mine.

This backstory is the why behind me starting the quest to find my first place. We all have heard about owning is better than renting but for me it was deeper than that. I just really don’t like apartments. With a strong why I “felt” like I needed a house, I begin the quest to find something that I could call my own. I had no real understanding of the process of buying a home, so I did what I always do when I don’t know something; I went to google. I starting reading all the information I could about getting my first home. As you all know the internet is full of information about getting a Real Estate. With so much information it felt overwhelming. The hardest part of it all was everyone is trying to sell you something so it was hard determining their true motives.

With all that research I realized that there is always more information and something else to learn. There are always more numbers to crunch but I didn’t want to get stuck by analysis paralysis, so I created a plan. I signed six month lease with my apartment. This forced me to get my ducks in a row and get into action.