More news on the house front!

We found a house we liked in a nearby suburb that will address all our space needs for now as well as the future. I don't want to go too much into it since we just made a bid and haven't heard back from the seller yet. The house has been on the market for awhile now, as many houses seem to be nowadays, probably because it had tenants so it didn't show as well, and also because they priced it waaaay higher than comparable homes. So we made a really low offer so that will give us room to negotiate. Our realtors did a comparison of homes sold in the area and there was one house that was the exact same floor plan (though the photos look like it showed a lot better because the sellers had actually lived in there, and they did some nice landscaping and whatnot) and sold for more money than the buyers should have offered just before this whole sub-prime mortgage crisis really came to national attention.

Anyway, we'll have more news in the coming weeks.

Ever since we got on the house hunt, I've been watching a lot more HGTV. There are some interesting ones where they show how to fix up a home to raise the value of it. That was going to be the case with the house we bid on before. This one doesn't quite have a fixer-upper feel to it, other than repairing some light cosmetic damage. Anyway, those shows on HGTV are always painting an optimistic light and the price that the realtors say they would list the house for seems much higher than it would actually sell for. The shows which actually show a house being sold show them selling for a lot less than they list for. And many of them show that houses are on the market for a long time before they end up selling.

It's got me a little nervous. I know it's years away, but eventually, we will probably end up selling that house, either to upgrade to a bigger one, or to move closer to town, or if our kids are grown and have left the nest and we want to get a fancy condo downtown. And it's kinda scary to think of the prospect of selling a house. Though I may be worrying about nothing since this is a complete buyer's market and the economy is on its way to a recession. If we're smart, when we want to sell, it will be in a seller's market, or at least a more neutral market, and when the economy picks back up.

Anyway, wish us luck on this house. By the time our lease is up on our apartment, we may be well-and-moved in to our new house. Well, we were thinking of taking a month to move anyway. The last one we did just wiped us out from any more moving experiences. Though, to be fair, it was a move across three states. :)

Oh, and we're gonna have a guest bedroom and a nice living room with two couches. You know what that means... you have to come visit!