HELP!!!!!!

So, last week I developed a devastating addiction: looking at apartments online. Don’t get me wrong, when we moved to NYC in 2006, we felt like we got a good deal for our apartment. Upscale neighbourhood, duplex, spiral stairs, exposed brick, working wood fireplace… it’s a gorgeous place and we’re very happy here.

BUT… since the market collapsed in September, apartment rental prices have dropped: and they’re REALLY low right now. The bad side of this is, we signed a 2 year renewal at our last lease expiration, because we were fearful of prices going UP, so we wanted to lock at the 2 year max.

So, now I’m browsing through kijiji.com and I’m seeing these RIDICULOUS prices on brand new apartments and huge lofts. Even studios that we could be saving over $1,000/month on our current rent!! That’s over $12,000 a year! So I called Dan on Wednesday last week, and told him I was checking myself into Kijiji/Craigslist REHAB- I was NOT allowed to look at any more apartments, because I was getting too depressed. After all, we’re stuck in a lease until DECEMBER of this year, so I just needed to forget it and move on.

But…I’m blaming Dan for this one… on Sunday, he reached for the laptop, after we were watching a design show on tv, and I KNEW he was going straight for the apartment listings! I begged him not to do it, but he was like, “let’s just see…”

So then he calls me over to come look, and I KNEW I didn’t want to see it. There it was: a GORGEOUS and massive brand new loft rental in the financial district, just 1 block from Wall street and the stock exchange building. The price was too good to be true, so Dan was like, “I’m just gonna call and see- it’s probably rented already anyway.”

The broker answered, and before I knew it, we were on a subway down to Wall Street to go take a look. When I walked in, my heart stopped for a second: A REAL kitchen! HUGE! DISHWASHER? This is unheard of in Manhattan!

Wanna see for yourself? CLICK HERE to see the listing and all the photos. Wow!

The worst part? It’s over $500 cheaper than what we’re paying now. So, here’s the deal: to get out of our apartment, we have to find a new tenant to sign a 1 year lease and move in. I’ve gotten a lot of interest, so we’re hopeful that someone will fall in love with our place and want to move in. The second thing is, we have to move into the new place by Feb 15th. So what do we do? We don’t want to sign a lease to the new apartment until we know for sure that someone is taking our old apartment (otherwise, we’re stuck paying TWO rents until the old apartment gets rented.) BUT, we don’t want to sign off a lease on our current apartment and give notice that we’re moving out, until we have a lease in our hands for the NEW apartment. We don’t want to give up our apartment if someone else ends up taking the new place!

Ugh… what to do, what to do? We’re still trying to juggle this idea, and we’re praying that things will just work out if they’re intended to. If not, we’re perfectly happy and blessed with our current apartment. It just would be so nice to have a bigger place for less money.

HELP!