Thank you all for the information and suggestions. Just to clarify: I have no concern about being evicted, but my lease ends in less than 6 months, and the landlord could decide to not renew. Then I would be faced with trying to find another rental (it was hard enough to find this one) if I hadn’t yet found a house to buy (I’m still looking but feel quite discouraged), and moving for the third time in less than 2 years.
The landlord is responsible for repairing/replacing the applicances, thanks to my lawyer. The standard lease makes the tenant responsible. My lawyer insisted on changing this. The last lease that I had, in another state, also made me responsible for applicance repairs, and the appliances were old and low-quality. I did have to take care of a couple of repairs in the year I was there.
This is why I am concerned: the house market is insane here, and it has been for a couple of years. I am looking in this town and an adjacent town. Both are very desirable because of excellent school systems and proximity to Boston. Because I want a small house, I am looking at the low end of the market and competing with young families who will stretch to get into the school systems. This is how things go here: houses come on the market Tuesday-Thursday, there are open houses on Saturday/Sunday (or only one of those days, or only approved buyers are allowed to see the house at a specified hour on the weekend), offers are due around 6 pm on Monday, the house is off the market a day after that. I have made offers on two houses; both received many bids, all over the asking price. One went for $100k over the asking price. The other was at an insane asking price, and it still went for well over that. A really awful house I looked at, that my agent and I agreed was an awful house with obvious structural issues, still sold in a day for over the asking price. The agent told me that there has been very little inventory for the last few years, and there’s a lot of pent-up demand.
I was looking last fall/winter; there was very little inventory and I didn’t find anything. I believe that things have settled down a little because it is too late for families to be in before the school year starts. I hope that something good will come on this summer or fall and there won’t be so much competition.
So my concern is that if I am anything but a nice check coming in each month, the landlord will decide that renting this house is too much trouble. Especially since I assume he’s heard about the crazy market. This house is a low-end house, because it’s small, in a great neighborhood. It would sell instantly to a young family. The landlord is an academic doctor, so he does not earn all that much, with young kids, so he is busy.
I did think about offering to buy this house, but I don’t like it enough to want to buy it. Also, under those circumstance he would expect top dollar.
I will approach him about repairing or replacing the oven. I’ve called the appliance service and left a voicemail asking for an estimate. I’ll do some groundwork on replacing the oven. I don’t want to ask him to convert to electricity for my sake, because I hope not to be here forever (but I don’t want to lose the option).
Thank you all.