Josh and I accidentally stumbled into an open house in our neighoborhood yesterday on our way to pick up the car. The street is less desirable, the house is smaller, the rooms are smaller, it has one less bathroom, but it has many more unique features: built ins, original architecture, a wood burning stove in the bedroom, a lovely outdoor deck space on the second floor. They were asking an obscene amount of money, way more than we ever thought we could get for our house. A quick perusal of realtor.com revealed a very favorable picture for the price of our home.
So. Hmmm. The four bedroom house in the suburbs, with the yard, the dog, the garden, ect. is starting to look attractive once again. It seems, for the first time, to make financial sense to move. We'd make a tidy profit. And, really, I don't see a two bedroom house, even in this part of the city, fetching much more than what we could get for it today. And with the Toyota Sienna Hybrid coming out in a year or so, well, let's just say we're experiencing some city-weariness over here at Casa WetFeet.
The town we want to move to has some lovely features. The house prices are still relativly cheap and on the rise. The housing stock is very varied, from the small matchbox house to the immense old victorian, lending the town some economic diversity. There is a swelling gay population, which means a tolerant atmosphere and more money for the school system. There is a very cute walkable downtown with a library, several coffeeshops, and nice BYO restaurants (the town itself is dry). There are huge areas of green. You are almost never out of walking distance to a park. There is a swim club with a nice 50 meter pool that is very inexpensive for residents. There is a train that will get you to the city in 20 minutes. My brother and sister-in-law live there. It's not a "rich person" town: our kids wouldn't be the poorest in school (like they will in the city), nor will they be the most well-off.
But we don't want to part with our city. We love city living, and if we had one more bedroom and some outdoor space, we'd probably never leave. The walk-everywhere lifestyle suits us: one of the things I dread most about moving to the burbs is being chained to a car. I lived in LA for three years, and I hated that lifestyle. I tell msyelf I'll walk to the train, to the park, to the library, to the pool, but I wonder. Starbucks was a five minute walk from our house in LA, and we drove there every time.
Our lives being what they are, however, we will probably have to leave after Josh is finished his education. There is precious little work for electrical engineers in this area, from what we can tell right now. Which, by the way, is one of the arguments for keeping this house. We don't want to have to move again in three years, losing money on the house by way of the moving process. It's possible that the real estate prices in this town will continue to climb to the point where we'd still make a profit, but Josh is highly doubtful. Not with interest rates doing what they're doing.
As you can tell, Josh and I have been mind-fucking this moving thing to death over the past few weeks. As with so many life decisions, the list of pros and cons is a mile long and stubbornly inconclusive. Only hindsight will tell us the right thing to do. When one of us is ready to move, the other is firmly planted in the city. We continually switch back and forth. A few weeks ago Josh wanted to move. I successfully talked him out of it, and then got infected with the lust to move myself. Now it's his job to talk me out of it. But then we went to that open house. Now we're all in a quandry again.
I know all we have to do is spend a Sunday going to houses we could move to, and that would be it. We'd be moving. With a baby on the way. Smart.
Our house is in escrow and the house we made an offer on goes into escrow today. I fell in love with another house yesterday. Oh, and I quit my job today event though I work from a home office. Yes, I am crazy and yes big decisions are hard. I totally get what you are saying and where you are at in your decision making process. Wish I could be more help to you!
Posted by: Deanna | Monday, August 22, 2005 at 11:39 AM