This Florida woman used move-in deals to help save up for a house
This Florida woman used move-in deals to help save up for a house
Moving is expensive, to say the least. Even a short-distance move can total between $800 and $2,500, according to Forbes Home. But moving every 12 months helped Errica Jamil, a professional home and office organizer in DeBary, Florida, save on rent.
From around 2004 to 2010, Jamil said she and her young son lived in seven different apartments.
“I was in the process of wanting to buy a house eventually,” Jamil told Marketplace. “But every time the year was up in the apartment, the rent would go up a few hundred [dollars].”
Faced with the choice of paying more or finding a new apartment, Jamil, who worked at a gas station at the time, would start looking for move-in specials, deals meant to encourage tenants to sign new leases.
“I would see an advertisement or something saying, you know, $200 off your rent for 12 months,” Jamil said. “Or they had specials where, if you referred someone to move in, you’d get free rent for the month.”
At one apartment building, Jamil said she got three new tenants to move in and sign leases, leading to three months of free rent. “Some of my co-workers were looking for a place … so I’m like, ‘Hey, I know a place.’”
Through moving every year, Jamil said she developed an efficient system for packing her and her young son’s possessions. “I would keep a lot of stuff in the boxes,” she said. “Every apartment, I swear, I left more and more packed.”
While she was saving up to buy a home, Jamil did not own a vehicle. “I pretty much lived at the bus stop,” she said. “I tried to move into [apartments] in the middle of everything, so it was easy to get to the laundromat, the grocery store and work.”
After working her way up to a management position at the gas station and building her credit, Jamil finally bought a home of her own.
“I was able to unpack everything,” she said. “It felt great to be able to say, ‘This is home, and we can stay here.’”
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