Typically, the vast majority of renters use the standard year-long contract when they’re leasing property. However, there’s also another option for paying your rent throughout your stay. Some people decide to utilize a month-to-month lease where they periodically reevaluate and decide to renew their contract throughout the year. Here are some useful things to keep in mind when deciding whether to keep your lease month-to-month or year-to-year.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Month to Month Lease
The Advantages
Freedom and Flexibility
When you’re leasing a rental property by month, you don’t constrict yourself to the responsibility of having to live in and pay for your place of residence longer than you want.
In this day and age, people’s situations can change with the drop of a hat; therefore, it’s important that you stay as flexible as possible to make sure you’re never stuck in one scenario. Whether it’s financial or personal, a month-to-month lease allows you to live at the pace of your life rather than being victim to a long, constraining lease agreement.
The Furnishings
Since tenants of short term lease agreements can be so fleeting, a good amount of properties for month-to-month leases may already be furnished. This can prevent you from having to make expensive purchases to decorate a space that you might only temporarily be living in.
The Disadvantages
The Cost
Landlords are at a severe disadvantage when they’re left with vacant units. Ideally, they want a fully occupied building so that they can use the rent income to make their own payments for the building. Therefore, month-to-month leases are usually paid for on a premium, which is a percentage more than a monthly rent on a year-long lease would be.
The cost will always depend on the market and location so you can never accurately gauge or estimate what you’ll be paying.
Who Actually Likes to Move?
People, as a whole, desire stability. When you’re bouncing all over the place from unit to unit with month-to-month leases, life can become a bit hectic, and even a bit costly.
The individual act of moving itself takes up so much of your time, energy and money. At that point, you will sometimes be paying the difference between a month-to-month and a year-to-year lease just from moving expenses. The money you spend would be better served in your savings, so maybe one day you can afford a mortgage down payment.
Aside from all of the financial obligations, month-to-month leases are sometimes difficult to find. Landlords are slighted by short leases so they aren’t as widely available.
Using these mentioned factors, you may be able to decide which type of rent payment makes the most sense for you and your lifestyle.
