Apartment vs. Mobile Home Living?

Background: My husband and I have been living in a single-wide mobile home for about two years. Let’s just say it’s been a bit bumpy. There was a major leak under the house last year and we couldn’t stay there for nearly two weeks while the landlord drug his feet fixing it. This caused a HUGE bug problem (palmetto bugs, from the moisture) that we’ve since eliminated completely. The issues we have now are pretty minor – the landlord refusing to replace the fridge that leaks on a daily basis being the worst of it. Decent neighborhood, quiet, and cheap ($500/month).

I don’t graduate from college for a couple more years, but my husband brings home about $3000 a month and we only have one car payment of $230 per month, so we do pretty well as far as money. We were going to see about buying a home toward the beginning of next year, but I’ve decided it’s smarter to just wait until I graduate and start bringing in an income so we can get the best loan/interest rate we can and maybe even build a home instead.

However, we really don’t want to stay in this trailer very much longer. Like I said, we don’t have any major complaints anymore, but we’re just sick of being here. I’ve always wanted to live in an apartment. A pool, gym, trash service, and no yard work sounds pretty sweet.

I’m looking at local apartments and if we want to stay away from the lower end (which I do), we’re looking at $700–750 per month. I’m assuming nothing is included in this except trash, sewage, and MAYBE water. I’m pretty certain we can afford this bump in the rent, especially considering all the amenities, but I also have some concerns.

Even the most expensive apartments have bad reviews online. I only looked at apartments with 2.7+ stars out of 5 based on reviews. There are two that are 3.5/5, so we’ll look there first. I know that people are going to complain no matter what – you can’t please everyone. They mostly complain about noise and parking and rude staff – blah blah blah, that’s pretty standard and we’re pretty easy going. But is it stupid to leave our mobile home, even if we’re unhappy?

This may sound stupid, but I hate bugs and I’m concerned about that. All of these apartments provide pest control (which we’re paying for now on our own), but we live in the south where there are giant flying cockroaches outside that sometimes get in. Our pest control has completely gotten rid of them, but I’ve always heard horror stories about roach infestations and things of that sort in apartments.

We’d only live there 2–3 years, let out credit build a bit more, and get me out of school so we’re more on our feet. I just need some outside perspective before we jump into something we’ll regret. Any thoughts or advice would be awesome.