Our New House

It is actually very emotional going house hunting. You have to be able to see your family in the house before you are even able to bid on it. Once you've gotten to that point, it is painful if you don't get the house, like loosing those potential memories (I know I am a little melodramatic).

I also realize what a blessing it is to own anything in the Bay Area. The humility that exists around home ownership here is so amazing. People are thankful to be able to own anything. It is a really different mindset here, hard to explain. ( I think a sociologist could almost do a case study). If you go outside the Bay Area, people's (including Bay Area people) standard change. Houses that you wouldn't have caught me dead living in Utah or Canada I would pay an arm and a leg here for the privilege. People's rent payments are double (sometimes triple or quadruple) what most people's mortgage payments are. The cost of living is just so huge here.

With the market crashing, we were able to start looking at homes in the area. The actual area we are living in is still appreciating (if you can believe it). We went and saw a lot of homes. I made the mistake of telling Kevin that I could see our kids coming down the stairs on Christmas morning in this one. How do you undo that potential memory? We had lost another couple of houses that our kids really liked so we decided to pursue this one. They ended up getting 10 bids, but they finally accepted ours!!!

It is 12 minutes from our current home and in San Jose (on South Jackson Ave actually). It is a darling little house, double the square footage that we have been living in for 7 years (can you believe it- 7 years). It is a bank foreclosure so we need to do some work in it. Luckily it is only 5 years old so it is mostly cosmetics (paint carpet, etc). Still really hard to believe. We take possession (hopefully) March 26th. Our goal is to move in by July.

It is going to be a fun process working on our new little house. I promise to keep you updated.