Saturday, July 14, 2012
"Location, Location, Location"
Now that Luke has made his appearance and we are now settled in as the FOUR of us, Chris and I thought it was time to start the long process of finding a home and getting out of his parents house. Our house in Shawnee sold in late April and we closed on May 22. Of course, with me being 9 months pregnant at that time and just weeks away from giving birth, it was not a great time to go and look at houses. Then Mr. Luke arrived and we needed to take a month or so to get used to him being around and adapting to a family of FOUR! But, without any further hesitation, Chris and I have started to look at houses this past week.
I have been looking at real estate online for about 4 months. But my husband is quick to remind me that all houses have 2 stories... One on the Internet and One in real life. I have kept this in mind as I look at all of the real estate websites and homes online. I have found several that I like but again, we have yet to go and look at any houses physically. This is because we are waiting on the bank to get us a rate quote and a pre-qualified letter. We started this in late June and still do have an answer or figure from them. Chris and i have mathematically come up with our own price range to look within. Hopefully, the bank will agree with us!
We do know what we want and hopefully our perfect house is out there waiting for us right now. I have a list of things that I really want and cant live without but Chris just says the house "will speak to him". That is sorta annoying to me because I like to have a plan of action at all times... I have been told I am a control freak (That's not true is it... WINK WINK)! But none-the-less, we have created a list of must haves:
4+ Bedrooms (We want our kids to have their own, plus a guest)
An office or study (Could be listed as 5 bedrooms I guess)
Master Bedroom on the 1st Floor
Large/ Open Kitchen (I REALLY, REALLY WANT AN ISLAND... Chris does not care! I will be the one in the kitchen 95% of the time so... the Island made the list!)
Game Room upstairs ( I really don't want all the kids toys lying ALL OVER THE LIVING ROOM)
At least 2500 Square Feet (I want to be a "Host Home" for church and family events so the bigger the better)
2 1/2 Baths (We would like 3 full but that seems uncommon around here)
Large Back yard for our doggies!
There are several other minor things we would like but these are the basics and must haves for us. From looking at real estate online for several months, this is a pretty common floor plan and I have seen many houses that have most or ALL of this!
However, this week while feeding Luke, I was playing with my smart phone and looking at real estate through a new Realtor ap (There REALLY IS an ap for that!) and I saw a house for sale in the housing edition Chris' parents live in (Where we currently live). I looked through all of the information for this house and FELL IN LOVE. It literally had EVERYTHING we wanted. It featured a HUGE Island kitchen, 6 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, large open floor plan PLUS a FORMAL DINING ROOM! Again, I really want to be a "Host Home" so this seemed just right. I showed it to Chris and he too really liked it... ON THE INTERNET!
We went down to the sales center at the front of our housing edition to get more information. Come to find out the model home in our edition was that exact floor plan. We walked into the model and almost immediately fell in love. After taking a tour of the model home we decided to talk to a sales agent to get more info. They gave us a booklet that had all the floor plans they build. It was here that we saw ON PAPER a house that seemed even better. This would mean we would have to build but we were OK with that. However, we wanted to get inside this EVEN bigger house so we had to drive out to Cypress to look at it.
Wow... This 4065 Square foot home had it all. It was 99% PERFECT! We both really liked it and decided to get information on the cost of building it. We got the printout of all of the upgrades and we began a crazy building frenzy. It was so much fun to think and dream about the perfect house. All of this came at a cost though... It was in Cypress which is at least 45 minutes from where we live now. It would not be any closer to either of our works and since it is right off of Highway 290, it was in one of the greatest and busiest traffic areas in all of Houston. Not to mention, we would have to "pick up and move" AGAIN! I was not thrilled about that at all since over the last year we have settled down and met friends through church and work.
All of this got me to thinking about the LOCATION of our home. The schools down here are SO SCARY to me and I can hardly imagine putting my kids in some of the larger districts around here. There is no way I would put them in Aldine ISD where Chris works and really don't want them in Spring ISD where I teach either. Conroe ISD is highly acclaimed but it too is very large and has some of the same issues that our 2 district face. Alot of our friends from church live and teach in the Willis district which is smaller but again, I just don't know where to live. This is our biggest issue and scare right now. Where we currently live is a more central location for both of our jobs and I really like its overall location but the schools, while being in Conroe ISD, are not the best in the district.
So in our 1st encounter of this crazy adventure, we have found that while the perfect house might in fact be PERFECT... it has to be in the right location to TRULY BE PERFECT!
We are still looking at trying to build within our current housing edition as well as getting together with a realtor to look at houses in the Conroe and north Montgomery County area. This is yet another time where my dad would say "This is a FAITH ISSUE! Give it to God!" Again, this is EASIER SAID THAN DONE! I am working on giving this issue to God and I am continuously praying for the right house, in the right location, to be shown to us! We covet your prayers!
Even in an adventure like this...
GOD IS GOOD... ALL THE TIME!
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