Author Archives: Kristina Tahnyak

Good morning Dinks.  Today we have a special guest joining us.  Eric from Personal Profitability was kind enough to chat with us and answer all our questions about buying a home and living with his finance.  By the time you read this Eric will be married so please drop him a line to congratulate him on his nuptials and welcome him to the world of Dinks.  This is the story of how Eric and his wife started a conversation about money before they moved in together.

Why did you decide to buy instead of continue to rent?

Before meeting my wife, I had finished my MBA and was living in a one bedroom apartment by the university. I house hunted for six months before I found the condo that would soon become my home. I found a two bedroom in a great neighborhood on the edge of downtown.

I ran the numbers and found that, living with a roommate, my monthly cost would actually be lower than my apartment, so as far as cash flow goes, it was a no-brainer to buy over continue to rent. Because of the neighborhood, the condo value just kept climbing and climbing, so it was a great financial decision all around.

When did you move in together and were you both renting or owning before?

I was living in the condo mentioned above in downtown Denver, and my fiancé lived in a house she was renting a couple of miles away. After dating about a year, we decided it was time to move in when her lease ended.  We made the big move in February 2013.

How do you divide your monthly housing expenses? 

When we moved in together, at first we were splitting everything down the middle 50/50. We calculated the cost of the mortgage payment, HOA, and utilities and split the cost down the middle. We didn’t keep tabs on grocery costs or other incidentals and just paid as it was convenient as costs came along.

Why are you now renting?

We actually just recently went back to renting an apartment, but it is not a forever decision. I had a great career and life opportunity that took us to Portland, Oregon. We have been here renting an apartment since December and our condo in Denver is up for sale.

We have not decided whether we want to stay in the rental or buy at the end of the lease, but we have six months to decide.  Right now, we are leaning toward buying a real house with a yard (we are in a rental condo right now) for the dogs, potential future kids, and to have a little more space for our new family.

What was the best thing about owning your own home and what will you miss about renting when you buy another home? 

Now that I have rented, owned, and rented again, my favorite thing about owning is that I can do whatever I want with the space. In the condo, I upgraded the floors, toilets and closets to make the place more comfortable. However, I didn’t love paying plumbers and dealing with the hassles (and expensive costs) of unexpected repairs that landlords have to handle when you are renting. I also love not having a landlord when owning, but I have only owned with an HOA, so there was still an overlord watching. If we buy a house later this year or next year, we will be landlord and HOA free!

Photo from Flickr

Good morning Dinks.  Last week I was off work on vacation and you know what that means, I spent ten lovely days watching nothing but court room drama TV shows.  That’s right I spent two weeks with Judge Judy and Judge Milian of The People’s Court.  All I can say is I learn something new every time I watch an episode of a judge show.

I’m obsessed with judge shows

Common cases on judge shows involve dogs, neighbours, landlords and contractors.  Over the last few months I have seen several cases about tenants suing landlords over damage from Hurricane Sandy.  I also see a lot of cases about tenants who sue their landlords for return of their security deposit.  Sometimes the judge rules in favor of the landlord and sometimes the judge rules in favor of the tenants.

Tenants protect yourselves when you move out

Let me tell you as a tenant myself I have become super paranoid about my living situation and I am now planning how I will document our move when we don’t renew our lease in October.  After six years of living in our apartment Nick and I have decided to relocate to a new neighbourhood and a bigger apartment come Fall.

The last thing I want is to move to a new apartment and be sued by my previous landlord after we already moved out.  I want to leave just the way we came, peacefully and quietly.  In order to prevent any unlawful law suits I am going to protect us with three little lessons learned from watching judge shows.

These are three lessons learned from The People’s Court and Judge Judy:

Take photos before and after your tenants move in.  It’s too late for us to take photos of when we moved in (ah if I only knew then what I know now), but we will definitely take photos of the condition of our apartment when we move out.  We will take pictures of all rooms including the kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom to show that we did not leave the apartment with any damage and that we did leave it clean.

Every visit, every communication.  Landlords can be known to do some shady things.  We once had a landlord who liked to enter our apartment “for emergencies” when we weren’t home, even though we didn’t give them permission to do so.  Now we keep track of every and all communication with our landlord, even for small things such as maintenance and repairs.  I also kept our original lease from six years ago as well as our yearly apartment renewal ever since.

Keep immaculate records.  I can’t even tell you how many cases I have seen have a verdict in favor of the defendant because the plaintiff couldn’t prove their case.  I am not sure why anyone would go to court without proof of their claim except they didn’t actually have any records to show.  This (along with my obsession for organization) is why I always keep records of everything.

Photo by Flickr