House Hunting

Kyle and I are strongly considering moving.  We bought our house 4 1/2 years and knew that it was our 'starter home'.  It is a 3 bedroom house that we had built and I love it.  However the kids rooms are small and with welcoming Casen in a few months it is toughing switching things around.  Plus we have VERY little storage.  The only walk-in closet is in our master, our attic is small due to the high ceilings, and a jeep takes up half of our garage. I have become good at hiding finding a place for things and to be honest our 3rd bedroom is a disaster/catch-all/guest room.

Kyle has always wanted to live on a acre+ and has recently become interested in being a horse owner.  This is a whole other post because there is a lot of work, money, and consideration into being a horse owner, but whatever.  I am sharing that with you because that idea influences the properties we are looking at.

Sunday we saw a house that was obviously not for us.  We liked it by the MLS description and pictures, but after seeing it in person we both knew it was a no!

Last night we saw a house near the area we live in now that is on an acre, has 4 bedrooms plus a bonus room upstairs, allows horses, and we liked the listing.  Here is my run down of the pros and cons if you care!

Pros

• The house is adorable from the outside.  Exactly what I am looking for.
• It already has a fence around the acre and a cross-fence (new term I learned from Kyle that means a smaller area fenced off for dogs, kids, pool, etc)
• The interior of the house is painted different colors in various rooms and I actually like the colors they chose so that is fine with me.  When house hunting for #1 so many people painted crazy colors and it was a major turn off for us!
• I loved the kitchen granite, cabinets, and the big island!
• The kids rooms were a good size and had small walk-in closets.
• There is a room up front for an office/playroom.
• There is a bonus room upstairs with a half bath that would be perfect for storage/guest room.
• The master closet was a little small but I thought the flooring and shower were very nice!
• I liked the overall layout of the house and Kyle liked it too.
• It is close to Cooper's day-care so the boys could continue going there.
• Still close to our good friends, the Funderburks.

Cons

• It does not have a building for the horse supplies and to get out of the weather.
• It is "only" an acre and Kyle questions if that is enough for a horse.
• As much as we love Cooper's day-care we know they won't be there forever and teachers can come and go so we don't want to rely heavily on the day-care. But I don't even want to think about leaving those amazing teachers!!
• The location isn't any closer to my parents or Kyle's.  It is a wash.

Overall I really liked the house we saw last night.  The realtor we met with was great and very helpful.  The couple that owns the house is anxious to sell and get out so we know there is some room to negotiate.  If we were confident on staying in that area I definitely think we would move forward with things (we need to sell our house).

But as much as I love the area and Cooper's day-care ideally we would move to the southeast side of Fort Worth where we are closer to my parents and only 5-10 minutes further from Kyle's parents, if that.  Unfortunately that area is booming right now and pricey.


We are seeing another house tonight that is on 14 acres, has a pond, a building, a fence, and all kinds of other things that Kyle is excited about.  Based on the pictures of the house it is hard for me to figure out what I think.  A lot of the pictures are dark and limited on what they show.  I am anxious to see it in person.  The outside look of the house is more what Kyle likes (a ranch/country house) versus what I like (the house we saw last night, brick/stone). 

The good thing about last night's showing was that we got a lot of questions answered and really liked the realtor.  We are considering using him to look for more houses from us because he is originally from southeast Fort Worth and familiar with the area we are interested in.  I guess we will see how things go.

We have a lot of work to do. 

• If/when to put our house on the market. 
• Look into financing.
• Clean our house in order for pictures to be taken and other prep if we put it on the market.
• Continue to house hunt.
• Continue to save money for all of the expenses.
• All along with a million other things going on in our lives especially prepping for Casen's arrival!

January's motto was 'just survive'.  Any suggestions on February's motto?