While I was out...

My darlings. I’ve been neglecting you, and I’m so sorry. The Agent has been hogging my computer every night, which has made reading all of your lovely blogs very difficult. I barely have had time to write my own stuff.

So, we’ve been house hunting, and that’s why The Agent has been on the computer every night. I think I originally told you that The Agent’s company was moving to Illinois, and we were debating on whether or not to follow the company. We decided that our ties to family were stronger, and we’re going to stay here in California (this decision is subject to change without notice-- it has already changed 18 million times).

So, The Agent has about a year left with his company, and then he won’t have a job. Now, you may be thinking, “If The Agent is about to lose his job, it might be a silly time to buy a house, Lovely.” Well, it just so happens that I live in the foreclosure capital of the world. The houses are astronomically cheap right now. We can get a house the same size and in a comparable neighborhood to what we have now, but for way less than what we pay now.

So, we’re downsizing. And we need to do it now, while we still have two incomes.

We have been looking at many, many, MANY houses, much more than when we bought this house. We bought the third house we walked through eight years ago. We’ve looked through ten houses this time, driven by countless others, and still haven’t found the right one.

But I think we’re getting close.

There are two houses I’m liking right now.

The first one we’ll call the Eagle House. It’s a red hot mess. It needs new paint and carpets before we could even move in. The shower would need about 7 gallons of bleach. The square footage is the same as what we have now, but it’s a 3 bedroom (we have 4 bedrooms now), so we’d be losing the extra room that we use for storage. But I like the house because of the location, and because it’s dirt cheap, and because since it needs new paint and floors, I can install whatever I want, instead of taking what I get.

The other one is move in ready. New paint, new carpets, new appliances. Granite counter tops. Big backyard. Four HUGE bedrooms. Even the kids would have their own walk in closets. It’s definitely a nicer house than what we have now, although the neighborhood isn’t any better. The only thing I don’t like about the house is that in order to get to the downstairs bathroom, you’d have to walk through the kitchen. You’d think that the contractor would have recognized that guests should not have to walk through a dirty kitchen in order to get to the bathroom. But I can live with that. The main problem is that it’s 50K more than the Eagle house.

We wouldn’t have to do 50K worth of work on the Eagle house, so we’d save money by living there. We really don’t need 4 bedrooms, so we could just down size a bit and we’d be able to fit in just  fine. The Eagle house is in a nicer neighborhood , and they always say that location is the most important part of choosing a new house.

But still. Those four massive bedrooms are calling to me. Bug could fit her bed in her closet, it’s so big.

But 50 grand more. And we’ll only have one income, and no promise of another job. We could afford it, but it would be tight.

Ugh. Decisions, decisions…. What would you do?