Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Nothing is ever as easy as it seems...

We knew this move was going a little too smoothly.  We have the dates set, the whole trip reserved, and have been spending weekends emptying out the extra stuff in the house on Craigslist.  We even found a fantastic rental house the day after we got orders to Homer.  Or so we thought.  After going back and forth for the past month with the owners of the home (who are also a Coast Guard family leaving the same ship we are going to) about deposits, dimensions, appliances, neighbors, everything, they suddenly decided that they are going to rent their house to someone else instead.  There are no words for how upset we were upon getting that news in an email yesterday.  Besides the fact that what they did is apparently illegal (nice to have good friends who are lawyers to tell us such things), we are in disbelief that they would do such a thing to a fellow CG family.

So now the stress has really begun.  We have discovered that the rental market in Homer is tough.  Really tough.  As in, when we call about rentals we are finding that we are the fifth Coast Guard family to call about the same ones, and nothing is available right now.  There is government housing, but it is apartment-style, and we could rent our own apartment for about a third of our monthly housing allowance (if it came to that) and pocket the rest rather than fork over the whole thing to live in housing.

We bought a house when stationed in Atlantic Beach, NC, and loved owning but hated the added stress of selling it while moving on a specific timeline.  We said we would never buy again until The LT retires from the CG.  Now that we are faced with a location with an obvious need for more nice rentals, we are toying with the idea of buying a home and then renting it out when our time there is up.  That would mean that we may end up buying a home before seeing it in person, but between the great realtor who has been helping us and some contacts we have in Homer who would probably be willing to check out some places for us, it could be done.  We have also gotten some great help from fellow Coast Guard families on the Facebook group Coasties on the Move.  People we have never met are calling around to their contacts, trying to help us out.  So in the meantime, we will wait out the next month or so and hope that we find a rental or make the decision to buy.  Let's hope that nothing else goes wrong with this move...and if you have any contacts in Homer who may know of some rental openings, please let us know!

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