Friday, November 30, 2007

The Great House Dilemma

Vince and I have been looking at houses on-line for about a year now. We've been driving around checking out areas on our own for a good nine months. And for the past couple of months we've been out with a realtor looking at houses. So here's our dilemma. Vince wants land, I want a nice house that is big enough for all six of us, and apparently we can't get both. Oh, the banks may loan us enough money for both, but we want to keep our mortgage payment from being scary.
Our choices seem to fall into three categories. Our first is land, say three to five acres, with a big house that needs work. Say about $50K worth of work to make it what I would want to live in. The second being an acre of land, with a new or fairly new house, but much (much) smaller than what we want. The third being a new or fairly new, big house in a subdivision, on a lot no bigger than a quarter-acre. Actually if the lot was a quarter acre, it would be considered big. But if we could find a house with a yard big enough for the kids to play, then so be it.

So I would like some input.

We're willing to purchase with a five-year plan in mind. Since the market is in our favor, we could purchase something now that may not be all we want, with the idea of seeing where we are in five-years, then maybe we'll be able to get what we want. So we need to keep resale value in mind. Do we purchase . . .

1. The big new house with no land.
I get the house I want, and the kids get neighbors to play with, but Vince feels like a caged up animal.

2. The small but nice house on one acre.
I'm not too sure about this option since Vince really wants more than just one acre, and then I'm also stuck with a house that really isn't enough room for us.

Or forgetting the five-year plan . . .
3. The older house on the land that Vince wants and just fix it up.
If we could talk the price way down, would it be worth it?

Ah, decisions, decisions. Any real estate experts out there? Seriously, I need help.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Why, Hello There

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth, I did not perish in the California wildfires (although not to be completely egocentric, but I must say those fires really screwed up my trip, more on that later), nor otherwise cease to exist. We are back in Texas, safe and sound, and have been for at least three weeks now. I've completely lost track of time. And I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things. Hence the lack of posting. And lack of clean laundry. We're in the midst of finding a house to buy. My husband wants land, and I want a nice house. Apparently a nicer house than we can afford. At least on more than an acre anyway. So it's all consuming. Like from 6:30 am until 10:30 am just this morning alone on the inter net kind of all consuming. And not starting Sophia's school work until after 10:30 am this morning all consuming. Although I didn't hear any complaints from her. And not folding the three baskets of clean laundry all consuming. You'd think with all that time on the computer I'd at least get some blogging done. We'll here's my attempt. And I'll throw in a picture of Francesca to boot.

Oh heck, and why not throw in the other three while I'm at it?


**Pictures courtesy of Grandma DeeDee**