An extension

{ Washington Square Park: you're still mine for a bit longer  |  13 March 2013 }

After a pensive weekend, followed by a week of email negotiations, our apartment situation is finally settled: we agreed to a 6-month lease renewal at a slightly higher (but lower than market-price) rent.

WHEW!

Things were looking bleak / expensive for us when our building said they could only offer a 3-month renewal, which wouldn't help since the new lease-end date would coincide with my Italian consulate appointment. Our building reasoned that we could always renew again in three months, but of course we ran the risk that the price would rise. Again.

We put off responding to the three-months-only-option e-mail, and were in the process of very grudgingly resigning ourselves to another year in New York (since subletting isn't an option for us and we also wanted to avoid another price hike in three months) when we received another communiquè.

Our landlords had reconsidered given my history with the building (six years, people!) and offered us a 6-month extension at a locked-in price. Not sure what prompted them to change their mind—maybe giving them the cold shoulder made me more attractive, the way boys are way more into the girls that give them the brush off?

Regardless, I quite like the idea of one last summer and fall in NYC. Although that does mean if we are able to leave when the new lease ends, we'd wind up in Sweden just in time for winter...oops!