Taking a few moments

to sort out some thoughts here.


Thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday yesterday! Yes, the big 4-0! LOL


(interrupting myself to share that my just-turned-6yo came in and said, "Mom, I'm looking for some other finery!" She's making a costume for a play they are putting on. Her working vocabulary always astounds me. Anyway...)


I got a wonderful gift from St. DH yesterday: a card that said I get to pick which house we move into. WOW! And...YIKES.


I currently have EIGHTY homes saved on Realtor.com. In all manner of place, cost, age, etc. They really run the gamut of possibilities around here - and this is just in the small range we can afford! Can you tell we live in big suburb?


Right now I have two clear favorites from what I've seen (about 70% of the list is things I have not seen, that are in a new area we are considering) and another house that has caught my attention. Each has REAL drawbacks and REAL benefits. We are having a hard time deciding just *what* is most important to us - affordable vs. big mortgage? good commute so I see dh once in a while? (good meaning 20 min vs 45+ ...there is nothing closer that is affordable and still in a safe-ish neighborhood). Relatively safe? Must this be our "forever house?" Each house appeals to me in totally different ways.



So I'm going to bore you all by thinking out loud about the three top houses I've seen (well, two we've been in and one I've only seen online). You'll see the great things and issues.

HOUSE #1

• probably 40+ minute commute. Commuting roads are either good but totally crowded and slow (so longer than 40min) or they are tree lined and wildly hilly. Cost of gas an issue
• has septic/well/oil heat when we are spoiled on city water, city sewer, and gas heat. We know nothing about their use/maintenance. Cost of oil an issue
• stairs galore, house is built into a hill so you've got some just to get to the main floor (thinking grocery carrying, my aging parents). Even the stairs inside seem a bit thin and steep
• the master bedroom is HUGE. We could probably divide it into two rooms (it was an add on over the garage). That bedroom's bathroom, however, is extremely tiny.
• There is a second master bedroom upstairs, with a decent bathroom (good for teenage girls! LOL) - except the sinks are out in the bedroom...weird. We could probably wall it off, somehow...
• It's nicely decorated, even the kitchen is new, we'd have little to do in that regard.
• It's probably twice the size of our current house. This is good and bad. Lots to clean, but lots of places to BE and places for our stuff. We'd need more furniture or the place would be barren.
• Two car garage! We don't have one at all now
• The main way to get to house#1 is through a street with huge mansions on it. You drive through with eyes wide with the grandeur...then hit our little street. Dh is afraid we'll either grow to covet or despise the homes. Neither is good.
• It's got two acres. Again with the good and bad: the owner said it took him 3hrs a week to mow/etc and that's time better spent around here. But the kids would certainly have space to run and play
• Their asking price is $130K *more* than I think we'll get for this house. That's a mortgage I'm wondering if we really want? Is it worth it? We worked so hard and scrimped and saved and made sacrifices to pay off our current home. We talk a lot about not living with debt. Was it all just talk?
• The place is like a nature preserve. It's like a nature-lover-homeschooling-mom's dream come true, if it weren't for the allll the drawbacks I mentioned above. Look!
  

That picture doesn't do it justice. It's a stream, that is that small in places and larger in others (not too big). There is a small pond, that we are thinking of trying to empty into the brook because it makes me nervous with little children. We drove by the other day and there were geese in it!

HOUSE #2

• #2 is in the same town as #1, but in an even more remote area (think small country-ish town on the outskirts of a suburb...you have to drive to the next town to shop, etc) It's about 20 minutes from where we currently live...so we could see friends but not as often. We'd make new friends as it's a very family friendly little town. It's a low crime area. I'm having trouble weighing expensive/very low crime vs. cheap/higher but not horrible crime
• remote means more hilly driving for dh, just a bit more than house #1. You avoid Millionaire Alley though, LOL
• It's about as big as #1, and their asking price is a little higher. It's been empty awhile though and is owned by a relocation company now, so we're thinking they'd accept a lower offer
• Two car garage like house #1, plus a lovely flat driveway for bike riding, etc.
• On a cul-de-sac, so kids could play everywhere, which makes up for the loss of an acre (this lot is just shy of one acre). Still room for a garden of some sort.
• The bedrooms may be a tad on the small side for a family of 7 (there are 4BR). What if we have more kids? We are moving to AVOID the room stuffing we are doing now, I'd hate to spend so much money just to be cramming kids into rooms again.
• There are so many places to just BE in this house. A sunroom, the kitchen, a small living room, a family room, your bedrooms, the basement, and THIS. This is what sells me this house like the stream sells me #1:

This is a HUGE, HUGE walk-in closet off the master bedroom. Now, before you think I'm a clothes horse that needs this room-like closet...no. When we saw it, it was empty, and my mind immediately flashed HOMESCHOOL QUIET ROOM. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies for sitting with a good book, we could put books and manipulatives on the many shelves, and a slab of wood over the clothes bars for a desk (or two...or four). There are three windows, heat, and a fan! And if we do have another child, this could be (*sniff*) turned into another sort-of bedroom...of course then we'd lose the cool school room that is what is selling me the house! LOL

HOUSE #3

This is the house I haven't gone into yet, haven't even driven by, although I've driven that road any number of times... I just don't know which house it is (I only saw the listing on realtor.com yesterday). This house is *completely* different from the other two. Isn't it cute?

• It's a cape cod. I'm not sure where they are fitting them all, but it says there are 5 relatively large bedrooms! I think the whole house is finished and they are claiming 2700 sq ft. That's more than we have now. No garage.
• It's about 1/3 acre on a busier street than we currently live on. Less for dh/I to do but only the backyard to play in. No stream, no cool school room, in our higher crime neighborhood. It was built in the 60's. Why do I like it, you ask?
• We could most likely buy it outright after we sell our own house. We can afford to buy the house and move into it while continuing to fix up our current house - a worry of mine since we are squished in here and it doesn't present well at all that way. If I'm a debt free proponent, shouldn't I *live* like one??
• It's modest. Do I really want to be all about big? Can't I get over having kids underfoot and no where to go? It looks like it would be *enough*. Isn't that what I'm always saying I'm all about??
• Even though the thousands of new homes around here LOOK nice, I've heard countless tales of how they were quickly and poorly built. This one and those will probably fall apart at the same time.
• It's CUTE! :) From the pictures, it also looks like a blank slate inside, I could use the money we aren't spending on mortgage to decorate, fence the yard, build a little deck, garden, maybe even a sunroom or something, and still be debt free.
• We'd know the town, the people, our friends/coaches/businesses. Shopping is right here. Not that I necessarily LIKE that, but I know dh really does, and I'm scared of something new. :-P
• We wouldn't have to stay there, we could pretty it up and move if we wanted, unless the housing market totally dives again.

Sigh. I wish I knew what was RIGHT. I want God to just drop out of the sky and say "This is it!" And this doesn't even *touch* the other 77 homes I have saved, LOL. Those are all in a town that's an even longer commute, most likely, than the first two houses, although they are in a busier town with city utilities (two big plusses for dh)

Thanks for reading this far. I'd love to know everyone's thoughts. Unless you are thinking, "What a Whiny Wilma, why don't you worry about something that's a PROBLEM??" ;-) 'Cause I'm not really whining, just thinking out loud, weighing pros and cons. Even though it *looks* like I'm whining. :)