Apartment living is always a mixed bag. On the one hand, as just one person, I don’t need a lot of space. On the other, the space isn’t truly my own, so customizing it to suit my needs and wants is generally out of the question. Options get limited quickly because at no point do you want to make a change that will jeopardize your security deposit.
I’ve enjoyed living in the Nickel Plate Flats this past year. Granted, at the time, it was a move borne of desperation. I needed a place to live and quickly, and the Flats just happened to be opening up to tenants right about the time I needed a place of my own.
The Nickel Plate Flats bill themselves as luxury apartments, which for a town like Frankfort, IN, is an audacious move. I understand the rationale behind it. Frankfort has always been a factory town, primarily blue collar, and industrial. Trains still move through here dozens of times daily moving goods from any of the factories along the industrial corridor out to any of God-only-knows-how-many distribution centers. There has been a huge push from both city and county government to start trying to raise the class of Frankfort as a city and Clinton County as a whole.
So building a luxury apartment building designed to draw in young entrepreneurs from outside Clinton County — like from Chicago or Indianapolis — makes a lot of sense. The challenge, though, is establishing a rate of rental that can successfully bridge the gap between what is typical for Frankfort and what just crosses the threshold into exorbitant.
For my first year here, I could stomach the cost of rent. The apartments themselves are nice, after all. And even with a few quibbles about building safety that were clearly passed over without challenge, I’ve had no issues with my apartment. Maintenance has generally been on top of any minor problems that have arisen, and the property management company was exceedingly patient with me this past month when my rent was very overdue before I could afford to pay up.
And the location has been perfect. With the apartments located right on the square, literally everything I’ve needed, with only a couple of exceptions, has been within walking distance, so I rarely ever drive anywhere.
But the time has come to move on. The cost of rent was already riding the line of being too much. Each month has been an exercise in testing my anxiety levels as I struggled to make bank as a self-employed businessman. And now, with my current lease expiring at the end of May and a monthly price hike of $35 on rent, my cost of living here firmly crosses into the untenable. So I’m allowing my lease to expire and am already in contact with another property management company that has come into town buying up all the slums and tenements, renovating them, and expecting to begin leasing them out over the next few weeks and months.
I have my eye on a 3-bed, ground-floor unit they’re currently working on, and I hoping it will be ready in time for me to move into by the last week of May. My rent will drop by nearly $200 a month, which I can easily stomach and will be much easier to hit every month with less stress. Even better, this particular unit will only be two blocks over, so my location barely changes with a move. I admit, the thought of a move stresses me a bit and makes me a tad anxious. But it’s a necessary change, both for me and for my kids, who are with me roughly 40% of the time. Eventually I hope to have a house on a couple of acres that is legitimately mine, but I suspect that is at least another year out, maybe two, maybe more.
For now, I need to lower my cost-of-living while increasing my monthly income with Dragonspire Media, focus on continuing my growth and development as a person, and give my kids room to grow into their own spaces when they’re with me. This is going to be a change for the better — and hits one of my major goals for the year.
Onward and upward!
