Our current house is a very cozy little 1.5 story "Cape Cod cottage " (pretty much), in a nice neighborhood, big backyard, full basement. But we were getting tired of living in 1352 square feet. Kevin and I had talked a bit about moving into a bigger house in a few years, and having my mother move in with us. But we weren't really thinking of looking any time soon until we realized the interest rates were about to start rising again, and Kevin got to wondering if our neighborhood was about to go downhill.
The house-hunt started in early April, I believe, one day when Kevin was driving to the hangar where his airplane is. (He's building a kit plane, a Rans Coyote S6S.) He drove past a house-for-sale sign and called the realtor, Jana, who turned out to a Prudential agent with an office close to our house.
We went to see the property, and it was in a beautiful country setting, but was quite a ways from town, and on the wrong side of a bridge that's really not that much fun during rush hour. Plus I really hated the layout, and preferred a one-story.
So we looked around a little bit, until one day I said something about building, and pointed Kevin to some online houseplans for Praire style houses. At that point we started looking at lots. We found one at the very top of our price range that we fell in love with -- 3 acres on a small lake. (Our devotion to this lot may have been influenced by the sunset we viewed on our first visit there.) We consulted with a builder, our banker, people we knew who had built, and made an offer. We accepted a counter-offer, but then got cold feet and backed out (with no penalties).
In trying to decide whether to build or buy, we started looking at houses again. Soon, we came to the realization that we really like living in town. And I think my mother would, too. Building is a huge hassle, and you pay about as much for a 2000 square foot home (with a near-perfect layout and exterior style, of course) as you do for a much larger previously owned home. Plus you end up in the country or in a subdivision with no sidewalks.
Not only did we reject building and start looking to buy in earnest, but we started looking exclusively in the same area of town we were already living in. We drove around our favorite neighborhoods pointing out 1950s ranch-style homes that were the next-best thing to Prairie style. I did a lot of searching online and got to know www.realtor.com quite well, along with the local MLS database.
It seemed like only a few days before we had our list of possibilities narrowed down to a handful of properties. One sold before we had a chance to look at it (I think it was on the market for one day). One had a poor layout. One had a narrow lot. The white painted brick seemed to have the best balance between lot, layout, and cost. That's the one we offered on, and the one we got.
Overall, I would have liked to keep looking, if only to be sure there was nothing less expensive and a bit smaller that we could love. But there's a strong possibility any savings we made in the cost would have simply gone to a higher interest rate, by delaying our mortgage contract by even a few weeks.
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