How to Know When it’s Time to Move

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by Darian Johnson, for www.thedollarbuild.com

Now more than ever, renters have a wide range of information at their disposal to conduct research about their next home or apartment. Armed with invaluable in-depth information, renters can better determine whether it’s time to look for greener pastures or if they’re better off staying put. Let’s look at a few factors you should consider when deciding whether it’s time to let your lease expire and look for a new place to live.

Dig Into the Data

You might not think that real estate values are very important if you plan on renting, but nothing could be further from the truth. The price of real estate in your neighborhood can have a tremendous effect on the price you pay for rent and the increases you might see on an annual basis. Much like home values, rental prices tend to reflect approximately 3-30 months of public information. These trends can offer insights into what you might end up paying in rent 3 or more years down the road. That’s important, especially if you like where you’re at an intend to stay put for the foreseeable future.

While rental prices don’t typically decrease, that doesn’t mean the neighborhood you’re living in will remain steady or improve with time. Your research might indicate that the neighborhood you’re looking at is on the decline. It’s unlikely that future leases will reflect that decline in your monthly rent amounts, but you’ll feel the difference as it impacts your quality of life.

Focusing on property value trends can help you foresee and possibly avoid undesirable rent hikes or situations where you’re living somewhere that isn’t what you had hoped it would be.

My go-to site for this type of research is City Data. City Data compiles an impressive collection of information about nearly every town in the United States.

Crime Rates

The first data point I examine when hunting for a new apartment or place to live is the neighborhood crime rate. Aging communities that were once desirable can foreshadow their demise with worsening crime rates. City Data allows you to look at annual crime levels over the past 15 years! By gauging whether crime is consistent, rising, or decreasing, you can start to get a feel for the direction the community is heading. The data available can even show you the type of crime rising or falling, and the number of sexual predators moving in and out of the neighborhood. You always want to feel safe when walking home, you don’t want the stress and worry of making it home safely be another concern on your list.

Building Trends

The second factor I’ll look at is building trends. City Data tracks the annual permits granted by specific towns and municipalities. It even evaluates how valuable the properties are. This crucial data point tells you the growth rate of your town and the quality of your future surroundings. Low-income housing is one type of development known to kill surrounding property values and can have a negative impact on your quality of life and safety. Depending on your specific situation, you may dig a little deeper into the development details to learn more about the type of clientele developers intend to target.

Schools

The third factor to consider is the quality of the nearby schools. With a quick Google search, you can find out how many students are enrolling and graduating from high schools and colleges nearby. Often, new facilities will pull citizens away from once desirable locations. A declining education system can have a drastic effect on neighboring property values and can be a sign that it’s time to move.

What’s Happening in Your Neighborhood?

Homeowners Associations (HOAs) don’t only affect homeowners. If you’re a renter in a community that has an HOA, you might feel the impact of an HOA just as much as the homeowner!

If you’re considering moving into a community that has an HOA, you should be hounding them for valuable information about the community. HOAs can tell you about the amount of violations occurring in the community, the age of key building materials, and projected community projects forthcoming.

Not all HOAs are competent and responsive but they usually have a legal obligation to be transparent and honor reasonable requests for community statistics. These statistics can give you valuable insight into whether you’ll want to rent a unit in that community. It might also prove beneficial to learn about forthcoming increases in monthly HOA dues, because chances are the homeowner might try to pass those costs along to you, the renter.  

Final Words

Unfortunately, most renters don’t realize the immense amounts of data and tools at their disposal as they search for their next place to live. By looking into straightforward indicators all around you it is possible to anticipate whether the rental you’re considering is a place you’ll want to live in for multiple years. And let’s face it, does anyone really want to move every year or two?

These are just a few of virtually endless factors worth considering, but hopefully, this will get you on the right track. Selecting the right rental is an important decision, so make sure you do your homework so you get it right