It's funny. All of a sudden one day, I woke up with cold feet about moving. I looked up an estimate for what we would pay on the remainder of our loan for the current house at a 15-year fixed rate. I liked it. A lot.

I started thinking that we could forego all the expenses of moving (you pay a ton of money off what you make on your house to closing costs, realtor's fees, etc.) and just make ourselves comfy. With a 15-year fixed, we could keep all the equity we have on this house and just build it up so that in a few years, we'd have even more to put toward a down payment, and we could expand our budget on a new house at that point based on the amount we have on the down payment.

The flip side: we know we can anticipate interest rates skyrocketing. Thanks for the history lesson, Carter, and glad we learned so much.

On the other hand, with moving, we'd take a short-term hit but with a great potential pay-off in the longrun. The houses we're looking at are already down in value, and since most of them are foreclosures, they're down about $60K from what the previous homeowners paid.

I don't know...I like my stability, even though it's not in the house that I ultimately want to be in. I talked to Andy (the Keeper of the Finances), and though I was the one who was more into the house-hunting thing at the outset, he really wants to move forward and at least try to list our house for a few months. I trust him completely, and if he says we can make it work, I am sure we can. He's actually the one, now, who keeps saying "let's get on the Internet and look at houses together!"

At this point, I am completely fine with whatever happens. We're going to end up where we are meant to end up, be it here or somewhere else. I will either feel really secure in staying here, or I will feel temporarily stressed out and excited at the same time if our house sells. Regardless of what happens, we have been having fun browsing houses online, doing some drive-bys, and looking at houses with our realtor.

I want to post pictures of our adventure. I would love to discuss some of the completely undesirable houses, and I am sure I will get to that, but I'm going to start with the ones we're seriously looking at.

The one that is really intriguing me is one in this fairly new neighborhood where all the houses are really close and scrunched together, but they are super-cute. This one house in particular that must be in foreclosure (based on the price and the fact that the pictures on metrobrokers.com make it appear vacant), backs up to the neighborhood common area. The common area has a playground and a pool. Off the master bedroom is a back deck. I just envision sitting there with Andy and a drink, watching Liam play on the playground. It's not a house for a family that wants total privacy, but I really like the idea. Here is a picture of the front and of the Google satellite image:





Now, we haven't yet seen the inside of it outside of pictures on the website, so it may be a completely different story when we walk inside. I really can't wait to see it, though.

Here is another house. It's a little smaller. The square footage is exactly the same as what we have now, but that is okay with me. I have always said I don't particularly need BIG. This one, though, has a basement, and the backyard overlooks this nice wooded area with Sugarloaf Parkway in the distance. The house wouldn't provide us much as far as additional room for another bedroom and our office goes, but the longterm goal would be to start by finishing off a room in the basement for that. Not right away, but it would be doable at some point.

I love the little front porch. It also is much like the previous house, where the houses go around a grassy square. In this case, the fronts of the houses go around the square. The pool and playground are located elsewhere. It has nice cabinets and countertops, and I like the master bathroom. It definitely needs carpet and a paint job, but for a foreclosure, that is not bad:



Here is a picture of the house from across the square:



Anyways, those are the two of the Top 3 right now. I'll discuss some of the others soon, and will include some of the less desirable houses (because that is SO much more fun to talk about!). For now, we'll just enjoy some stress free days before our realtor returns from overseas and we actually make this adventure a reality...