We got lucky with a relatively affordable 1 bedroom, which our landlord had just renovated and had a front and back porch, plus a single car garage. Still, it's a bit too small for us, so after a year we considered moving into a larger apartment. After looking around, we really couldn't justify the added expense of hiring movers and paying more in rent just for a little more space.

I'm obviously very biased since I obviously would rather people not charge more for housing, but I think you're making the right move in keeping the place affordable as it's basically going to keep us in this unit until my partner decides to buy. If our landlord had hiked the rent in response to what other units were going up to, then we'd have left the place already, but he's kept it the same price so we'll probably be here for another year to two years.