House hunting

Finding a place to live in our new city proved to be one of the more stressful things we experienced during our move preparations.

The rental market here absolutely stinks.  There was nothing available for months leading up to when we arrived.  We were looking for something that started anywhere from mid-June to July 1-ish (we were a bit flexible since we could stay at Garrett's parents house for a week or so if necessary), but we were willing to pay a whole month's rent ahead of time just to lock something down if needed.  But nothing came up!

I guess I shouldn't say there was NOTHING available... sure, we could have moved into a 900 square foot apartment with two bedrooms and one bathroom.  We also probably could have found a decent, dated house out in the county, but the schools out there aren't as good as the city schools.  Maybe it was a bit crazy (considering the circumstances with nothing available), but I was adamant that we live within the city limits so that we could be in that school district.  The county schools are decent, I'm sure.  Probably a lot better than their school in Florida (not hard to do).  And deep down, I know that kids will thrive wherever they have the right support system.  Kids can be in a terrible school but if their teacher is wonderful, they will have a wonderful experience!  And vice versa... if they have a terrible teacher, it doesn't matter how good the school is, really.  But... knowing that there were two elementary schools here in the city that were in the top 25 in the entire state... I was adamant that we be in one of them.  Of course, this didn't make our house hunting experience any easier, but honestly it didn't matter.  There was nothing, anywhere.

We came down here in March to do some "house hunting" with a realtor that Garrett's new practice set us up with.  We spent a morning driving around with her, looking at some neighborhoods and even touring a few houses.  Obviously she wanted us to buy something, but we were certain at the time that we wanted to rent first, so we didn't seriously think about buying anything that we saw (plus, she was showing us houses that were SO over a budget we had ever considered, which made it a little easier to not get too into it.  It was kind of ridiculous).  She warned us that the rental market was rough, but that we might be able to rent something that was for sale but not selling quickly enough for the seller.  So, we left the city at the end of that week with the hopes that something would turn up around June.  (We also toured some schools that week and really liked them, confirming my desire to get into the city schools above anything else.  To be honest, nothing compares to their elementary school in Madison, I don't think we will ever find a school that good again.  We were so lucky there!).

So, we kept looking.  April, May passed and nothing turned up.  Small apartments were always popping up but the thought of moving into a 2-bedroom apartment made me want to cry.  I suppose we could have rented something temporarily until we found a house to buy, but even that option sounded depressing.  When we buy a house, we want it to be a house that we will stay in for a good long while.  And... that house will likely cost more than we want to spend right now.  I didn't want an "interim" house for a few years.  I want to buy once and then stay.  Maybe that's dumb.  But I also wanted to check out the wards, the different neighborhoods, and just figure out our life here first, before committing to something major.  When we bought in Florida, it was easy because pretty much all the residents bought/rented homes in a handful of 4 neighborhoods.  It was perfect, and we LOVED where we lived.  I thanked my lucky stars every day that we lived where we did, and there were houses we had seen during our house hunt back then that I was SO happy we didn't buy. So, we got lucky that time in Florida.  I didn't want to push my luck this time that we would buy in the right neighborhood this time.  Our options are a lot more "open" this time around.  There are a lot of nice neighborhoods around here, so there isn't an obvious choice.  One of the really good schools is in one ward, and the other school we really liked was in the other ward.  So there was that to consider, too.

When June rolled around, we still hadn't found anything.  There was a house for sale that we really liked a lot (in one of our very favorite neighborhoods from when we had toured around in March.  The neighborhood had walking trails and 2 pools and a really nice playground, tennis court, etc).  It just seemed perfect.  BUT... it was at the top of a budget we had considered, and there was no way we were about to buy something that expensive without seeing it first.  Garrett didn't have any time off to go down there and see anything, and I can't exactly just get away for a few days with 3 kids at home.  So, we were kind of stuck.  Garrett's parents toured it for us and FaceTimed us during that.  It really was great... a fenced back yard, no house right behind it (just a field), a walkout basement, 6 bedrooms plus an office, coffered ceilings, tons of storage space, a flat driveway (hard to find here).  The basement even had those tiles that look like a wood floor... it was great.  But, again... we just couldn't pull the trigger without seeing it in person, especially since it was at the top of our budget.

Finally, in early June, Garrett couldn't take it anymore and booked a flight down here to look at some houses (to buy) in person.  I was shockingly a bit more calm about the whole situation than I expected I would be... I just figured a place would turn up to rent eventually (this is surprising since I'm a huge planner and normally that would stress me out like crazy.  Maybe I was just too lazy to think about it, or too stressed about other things).  But Garrett couldn't live any longer with the fact that we were moving in 3 weeks and still didn't have a place to live.  So, he booked a flight and set up some times to tour some homes for sale with our realtor.  This time, some cheaper "interim" homes that would get us by for a few years.

This blog post is getting too long so I will continue tomorrow!