I heard a knock on the door.

“Honey, it’s bad news.”

I hesitated for a minute–maybe I could delay the onset of the consequences to come if I remained in ignorance for a moment longer. The desire for certainty, however, quickly took over, and I entered the bedroom, ready, as much as possible, for what was to come.

Stephen didn’t say anything. He handed me his cell phone, a brief e-mail displayed on the screen. Our landlord of eight years refused our request to renew the lease on our home for another year. Instead, she was going to sell the house, and we, for the first time in nearly a decade, would have to move.

Miami had transformed from a city growing at a moderate clip to a boom town during the course of the pandemic. People from the north, the Midwest, and other equally unforgivable climates had taken advantage of new remote work options, descending, en masse, on the city’s limited suburbs. Property values had risen sharply, even in communities traditionally viewed as rather distant from Miami proper, like ours. A three-bedroom home in a planned community in our town cost about $130,000 back when the real estate market crashed around c. 2007, but that same home, regardless of wear and tear or overall condition, would sell for over $300,000 in 2021 while the effects of the pandemic were still felt. Our landlord, like so many others, undoubtedly wanted to take advantage of these favorable conditions, and a set of tenants, no matter how reliable or responsible, would only hold her and her family back from the prospect of record profits.

In April 2021, Stephen and I were in no position to contemplate a move. We had approached our landlords about a prospective renewal six weeks earlier back in March. Stephen, a merchant marine officer, was anticipating a return to work at sea in mid-April, and we wanted to have everything in place–or begin to prepare for the worst–as quickly as possible. Our lease did not officially end until July 1, but Stephen’s rotations at sea can last as long as 120 days a time, so we had become used to pulling the proverbial trigger on important domestic matters well in advance over the years. Our landlords did not respond to us, despite each of us, independently and repeatedly, attempting to contact them via text message, phone call, and e-mail. Our landlords had finally responded . . . three days before Stephen was required to return to sea. If his rotation lasted the full duration, and we believed it would regardless of the shipping company’s claims to the contrary, he would never be home in time to facilitate a move. He had no choice: Stephen had to acquire an exemption for a family emergency from his union, and he lost a stable, well-paying job–our only household income–as a result.

I was in an equally challenging position in a different way: I was scheduled to defend my dissertation to finally earn my PhD in June. The road to this point had been unexpectedly long and challenging. I finished my last dissertation chapter in December two days before I spent Christmas by myself at home, miles away from family and friends by choice due to the threats posed by the pandemic. In January and February, I finished the introduction and conclusion, and I began to revise dissertation chapters, some for the firs time, before the end of the month. Per university requirements, I had to submit my dissertation to my committee 30 days before my scheduled defense date, or, according to my painstaking calculations, by May 27. By the time I learned about the unanticipated upcoming move, I had exactly 6 weeks to finish all remaining work on the dissertation, a nearly impossible schedule without this unwelcome, looming life change.

Worse than this, our landlords insisted upon engaging a real estate agent, and listing the home for sale, immediately. Suddenly, a real estate agent we had never met was “on call” and in possession of both of our cell phone numbers. This real estate agent, like every single person engaged in this line of work, stressed how unobtrusive the whole process would be for us, but, somehow, while we researched a new place to live, began packing up all of our belongings, and I desperately attempted to finish my dissertation at what was now an even more frantic pace, we had to make time for a number of unexpected “appointments.” The real estate agent had to meet us and see the place, of course, then she had to somehow return later to take pictures to use to list it online. One of the two landlords–which we had never met in person in eight years–suddenly insisted upon visiting the property, inspired by his desire to inflate the price of the house well above the real estate agent’s suggested listing. And, we had to plan to leave the house entirely for “showings,” a particularly unwelcome series of events which required that we, in advance, secure everything we owned of any value.

It would have been easiest for us to move laterally and find another, comparable home in the area for a one-year lease. But, rental prices had inflated, too, over the course of the previous year, and a three-bedroom stand-alone home in any part of South Florida would cost us another 60% per month over our current rent. We, quite simply, could not afford it. We were dismayed to find that this phenomenon affected nearly all parts of Florida, and we were left with one remaining option: we had to move entirely out of the state. Somehow, in between addressing the real estate agents’ consistent, and ever growing, list of needs and my dissertation revisions, we decided Charlotte, North Carolina was our best choice among a series of challenging choices. My sister had, at one time, lived in the city, and both of us had agreed that it was a city both of us could envision settling in and enjoying. By the end of April, we planned our first, and only, real estate exploration excursion to Charlotte in the hopes that we, in a revolutionary real estate market, would be able to find a new home.