15 Finding a new place to live
November 2024
Our remodeling plan calls for cutting a multi-storey hole in the middle of our house for the elevator shaft as well as moving some walls. In our minds, that means that we were going to have to move for the duration of the renovation. But who will rent us a house that will accommodate 4 adults, 4 car, and 2 cats in the middle of November? Greater Boston isn’t exactly known for having either plentiful or affordable housing, and most landlords like to rent their properties in spring when demand is highest. Despite these odds, we really don’t feel like we have a choice – we really have to move.
While the final design and contract isn’t final yet, we’ve been talking with Gilmore about the the construction schedule so that we can plan our move. Gilmore’s verbal estimate is that our renovation will take about 9 months and begin early in 2025. While we’ll be thrilled if that’s what actually happens, we’re planning to sign a one-year lease for our rental. That will provide us with a time cushion for all those unknown unknowns we worried about back in Chapter 9.
Fortunately, we live in the internet era, so we’ve been able to let our keyboards do the walking through web sites like Zillow.com, Redfin.com, Homes.com, and a host of others. And, as one does nowadays, we built a spreadsheet to evaluate them. I won’t bore you with the details, but we over a couple of weeks, we found 14 properties to look at of which we requested tours of 10. Things started to look up.
And then we started actually seeing properties and found:
One property was still undergoing its own renovation, and we didn’t want our move to be dependent on someone else’s contractor completing the work on time.
Another house seemed to be currently occupied by hoarders. While the agent claimed they were going to move, it seemed highly unlikely the current occupants were prepared to move out within the next year or so.
One house looked great from the Zillow photographs, but when viewed in person, had more of a 1970s frat-house vibe and some damage from prior tenants.
Several houses had only enough parking spaces for 1 or 2 cars.
One property advertised that cats were allowed, but when we showed up for the tour, the real estate agent said, “Oh, no, we don’t allow any pets.”
You get the idea. House hunting in November is not for the weak of will.
After about a month of looking, we found a place in Framingham that seemed just about perfect. It had a two-car garage and a big driveway, lots of storage space, a nice neighborhood, and was generally just what we were looking for, albeit at the top of our rental budget. We told the agent that we’d take it and drove home feeling celebratory and like we finally could check the rental off our to do list.
That night we heard back from the agent: the landlord decided that a one-year lease was too short; they were looking for a lease agreement of 2 to 5 years.
When landlords consider a one-year lease too short, you know you’re in a tough real estate market.
And just when we were resigning ourselves to maybe taking the place that was under renovation, a new listing showed up for a condo within Huckins Farm in Bedford. I didn’t know anything about Huckins Farm, but Carolyn had friends who had lived there and said it was very nice. So we asked for an appointment and took a tour. And to our pleasant surprise, this is what we saw:
As we found out, Huckins Farm is a storied part of Massachusetts history. In 1637, a Massachusetts Bay Colony court granted 2,200 acres to the colony’s first governor, John Winthrop, and the deputy governor, Thomas Dudley. That property was then handed down over the centuries as a dairy farm and orchard until 1987, when a parcel of it was sold to a developer who built condominiums. Today, it is largely a residential community and equestrian center and it is still surrounded by conservation land, including the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
The condo we found has a 2-car garage, space for another 2 cars in the driveway, 3 bedrooms, and 2.5 baths. Most importantly, it seems like it will suit the cats fine. It is about 750 square feet smaller than our house, but we were expecting that we’d have to downsize a bit when we rented. It looks about as perfect as we’re going to find given we have only about 6 weeks before we have to move. So we asked what we need to do to apply; after all, we haven’t rented an apartment in the last 39 years, so some details may have changed.
As it turns out, all we need to provide is:
- 4 rental applications, one each for me, my wife, and our two sons,
- W-2 or equivalent income statements for everyone,
- Employment information for everyone,
- Checking account statements for all,
- Savings account statements for all,
- Personal details allowing credit checks for all (which of course required us to remove any freezes we had with the 3 credit reporting companies),
- Personal details allowing criminal background checks for all,
- 4 signed lease agreements, and
- 3 months of rent payments for the first month, last month, and security deposit
I think I provided less paperwork when I applied for my Top Secret security clearance.
Still, I’m pretty sure we’ll get approved, which means it’s now time to dispose of the junk we’ve accumulated over the last 22 years, start packing, and find a mover.