u/og_gangsterbee

My mom and I are looking for someone to rent our house on the near east side (Schenk/Atwood) in May/June so we can break our lease early, since the stairs were really getting impossible for her. Landlords are small as this is their only rental, and they're local. House is 2-3 bed (3rd is small, like 8x10 and no closet but makes a great office) with one good bathroom upstairs by the bedrooms, and one open air bathroom in the un-remodeled basement. Pet friendly, $1900 rent, more info in ad that the landlords posted on CL.

Our lease is up end of June, but if you move in before that you would still be signing a new lease, instead of subleasing and then re-upping. Move in date could be as early as mid-May (can negotiate), and can negotiate some house stuff we won't be needing now that we're in apartments again, like weed wacker and AC units. We have done some work on the front/side garden you don't see on google street view, and it should be mostly lovely native prairie plants that will encourage pollinators, and not much for care/weeding.

https://madison.craigslist.org/apa/d/madison-full-3br-house-in-great-near/7929109605.html

So I'm in the upper midwest, and this week my mom's '23 compact SUV that she just got last year got totaled by baseball sized hail. It would be safe and driveable for way less than insurance will pay out, but she actually hated the thing and wanted to trade it as soon as she was settled at her new apartment. Since a bunch of hail dents and a salvage title will very much hurt trade in value, our best financial bet is probably to take the payout. She doesn't have great credit (hasn't had loans since she and my dad lost their house in the 2008 recession), but I think it's mostly a lack of credit history outside of bills, since the foreclosure shouldn't be on there anymore. That is to say, no low/zero interest rate deals for us!

My main question is, her sister said if we can go a couple months without a car and wait for the market to cool off we might get a better deal.... how true would that be? There have been thousands of totaled cars just in my mid-size city, and that's not including the supply from dealerships being affected from the storms as well. Even the cities we'd normally go to about 90-100 miles away for cheaper cars have been having prices rise (I think, I feel like I have seen a shift since I started looking online Tuesday) because they've also been hit by hail, tornadoes, and flooding. I'm just not convinced this will go away soon, and since we no longer live together sharing a car would be pretty hard, but not impossible for the short term. It's kind of a weird situation and it would be great to get some outside perspective from people who know the market better than I!

[For Rent] Rental house available in Schenk/Atwood

Is there such a thing as a better time of year to buy a used vehicle?