Making Moves

One of the most stressful things about renting is figuring out what to do when your lease is up. Do you stay in the place you've called home for at least the last year (often longer)? Or do you go through the apartment-hunting process all over again?

After living outside of New York City for almost two years, my guy and I decided it was probably time to make the move into Manhattan. The cost of our commute is killing us, and we figured we'd end up saving money paying a higher rent in New York. We found a friend to share the space with and set out to find THE place to move to.

We looked at a few listings, and visited a couple of apartments, but nothing that called out to us. We anticipated a long apartment hunt, at least lasting a couple of months, but after just a few weeks of looking, we already found a place! It was almost love at first sight. The neighborhood is nice, there are many more restaurants, shops, and banks near by than any of us are used to, and the commute to work won't be hard. Even though we still have to think about logistics -- new furniture, insurance, coordinating the move, etc. -- we're very excited about the move and happy to see how smooth it's been.

We're all still surprised at how quickly things happened for us, but we're also stressed out about what will happen a year from now when we have to start this up all over again. Apparently, the fact that we aren't even moving for another two months does nothing to relieve our anxiety over the next time we repeat this process.

Have any of you had to move recently? Do you find that it gets easier or harder to go through the steps each time your lease is up?