You asked, I answered. Pt 2

Yes, friends, it's time for me to answer another of your questions! Here goes!

Helen said...
I'm curious why you moved!

Great question! And the short answer is "Cuz that's where the house is." No, wait. That's the answer we gave our friends and co-workers in Appleton who wanted to know why we'd want to move to this tiny village.

Sorry.

I'm going to assume (I know, my bad) that you're wondering about our most recent move; so that's what I'll answer. There's always a pretty long explanation as to why we made EVERY single one of our moves, btw; even from apartment to apartment.

Anyway....

We've always wanted to have our own place, but just simply couldn't ever afford it. That is until the bust of the housing market. Still, what we could afford was menial by other's standards and not that good by ours, I have to tell you.

We started seriously looking at houses in May of 2007. In June of that year, we found the "perfect" house. It had been foreclosed on, but not before the inside had been completely remodeled. The kitchen was my favorite part, I have to tell you; Pergo floor, recessed lighting, a fireplace (yep, in the kitchen!).....in a nice neighborhood on a quiet street, in a great school district.....

Yeah, we got outbid on that one. I was crushed. But we really couldn't afford it anyway, at least not on one income, so we just tried to move on.

The next half a dozen or so houses in our "price range" were not good. And I mean that. Most of them would need to have at least 20k put into them just to make them liveable...and some of them were in downright scary neighborhoods. Once, I didn't even get out of the car. LOL

So we just kinda gave up. The last one we saw had 6 inches of water in the basement and why that was would not be disclosed to us unless we made an offer. No thanks.

By then it's July of 2008 and we just decide to give up, for now. I didn't want the boys to have to move after the start of school, so we just decided that we'd pick up the house hunt in the spring.

Little did we know, other plans were in the works.

This house comes into our price range after a 10k drop having also been on the market as a foreclosure. The first time we looked at it, we drove right by and then I mentioned to Jon that I thought that the "yellow house" had a For Sale sign in front of it. Turns out that was the address we were looking for.

It was November and dark outside before the realtor could meet us. And dark outside means pitch black inside a foreclosed home; no electricity and all that. So we look as best we can with flashlights that night and two days later contact our realtor to take a tour again, this time in the daylight. He met us out here on a Saturday, what a good guy!

In talking with our realtor in the empty dining room, he said "the windows alone are worth 10 grand. If you're even a tiny bit interested, lets make an offer on Monday and see what they say."

Jon brought by the papers for me to sign at 10 on that monday morning and just after noon that day called to tell me that the house was ours. We were thrilled. (And still are, by the way.)

We didn't really consider at the time what moving from a big city to a small village would mean. It hasn't been that easy. But the difference in the $$ between our mortgage and our last rental lease has made it a little bit easier, for sure. It's nice to have the option to paint Caleb's room red if we want (how many walls is still in negotiation)....and not have to endure someone else's choice in "good music".

The boys have both adjusted well; made new friends and all that. Jon's experience remains the same- he just has a commute twice a day that he didn't have before. (We lived literally 4 blocks from his job.)

I've had a harder time, really. I've sorta become an introverted extrovert in moving twice in 3 years and that's made it harder. And it's different in the big city where you may only know a few people on your side of town; in the village of 415, we are the outsiders. But it's only been 7 months, it'll take time. And I'd have probably never met E in real life if I didn't live here. And that's reason enough for me!

So there ya have it, Helen. Hope that's what you wanted to know! LOL