House hunting

It started with curiosity. I don't know why we were even looking. But we found a house that we adored. We called our neighbor, a real estate agent to open it for us. We looked, we loved. And that started us on a realestate rollercoaster that left me exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.

First hurdle - can we really afford this? After much budget crunching and pre-approval applications, and discussions, we concluded that for our dream house for forever - yes we could probably make some slight sacrifices and afford this.

Second hurdle - school zone. With Jessica going to MS next year, I wanted to make sure she would be happy. With an initial background check with some colleagues, I wasn't so sure. We pulled out offer just in time to save us the $100 ernest money.

Searching for something equally desirable in the right school zone and right price led us to looking beyond the boundaries I really wanted to go. Looking closer to where we live proved fruitless. There just aren't many homes in this area with the square footage we want in the price range we can afford. And with this being our last home we will ever purchase, I wasn't willing to settle for anything less than exactly what I want.

We found a second home, but our offer was a bit too low for them. While they were muddling over whether they wanted to go with our offer or not, we looked into building. There were some beautiful options, but to get everything we want - the price just kept going too high. The more I thought about it and the sacrifices we would need to get the price down to what we could afford, I kept thinking about the original house and how I wasn't sacrificing anything for that house except an acceptable school option.

I decided to look into alternate school options. After all, we are teachers and transfers are usually accepted for us. We found an acceptable school option. We put our offer back in to the original house and it was accepted right away.

Now it's paperwork, packing and getting someone to lease this house so we can get out of it and start paying a mortgage again. My husband is trying to swallow the consequences of breaking our lease. I knew it wouldn't be pretty, but it is doable as long as someone moves in here right away - we'll be fine! I'm told that shouldn't be a problem. I'm having faith that since all other things have fallen into place so nicely to get this house, then this last hurdle should be smooth sailing as well.

Timing isn't perfect. I wish we were looking at July instead of March to close, but I have to believe that all will go our way. The interest rate is good right now. We're being told that rates and house prices are bound to go up by this summer as the market around here doesn't have a lot to offer in this price range and people are moving in.

Our real estate agent, Lileah has been a gem. We've bonded over many nights dragging our kids on another house search late on a school night with little or no dinner and waking up early to get ready for school/work. It's been tough on our schedule, but hopefully all will be worth it. The kids are unanimous on their vote. They like this house the best, too.

Updates to come. Ammon's babysitter is refraining from excitement for us until our ten days are up. After our yoyo saga in house hunting, she refuses to get her hopes up for us even though I've tried to assure her, this is it this time!