Houses, houses
Thursday 
in mid-morning 
Mystie
Well, the news from Madam General Contractor is that her position is postponed.
After getting the plan and having something concrete to get numbers with, and after running many different sets of numbers (that was Matt’s job), we decided it would be best not to build this year. We could technically do it (the banks would give us enough money), but the payments would be too high to be comfortable and we wouldn’t maintain our emergency cushion.
Our original plan a year ago was to buy a Richland house to live in for a few years after selling the Kennewick house and before building. No Richland houses in our price range and conditions was forthcoming at the time, so we decided to rent and begin moving forward. We’ve made progress and I don’t think our efforts or time have been wasted, especially since in looking toward Richland again, the house prices have come down about $10,000, maybe $15,000. We apparently were right to heed the murmurings and sell when we did, it was the peak and now there’s another doldrum.
So we went out with our Realtor(TM) — crazy industry — yesterday and saw three houses. Two of the three were easy “No way!” decisions, but the middle house we viewed has potential. There’s a bank repo Jeremy says will be on the market soon and it’s the size, price, and probably condition we’re looking at, so we’re noodling out to potential of this F house — that is, a ‘44 government jobbie, not a local slander — we saw yesterday while waiting for that to come on the market. Most likely, we’ll wait a week, decide to go with the F, only to find that despite it’s being on the market for a year, it’s been bought the day before we got our offer in. That would be the way of it. :)
When Matt first suggested we wait another couple years before pursuing our building plans, I spent a day trying to work out how it could feasibly work. The next day, while washing the dishes, it suddenly dawned on me, “Hold on a minute! Matt is saying we should spend a few more years in town and **I** am the one arguing we should move out to the country now?!” Staying in town for a little longer makes sense on many different levels and not simply the financial. The financial considerations made the decision, but staying in town during this point in our lives means I will continue to be able to easily (and cheaply) visit with friends while I have fewer and younger — that is, not in school — children, I will be able to have at least one more home birth, and we have time to work out the details of how we want to build without time pressure — which, of course, really means that we won’t actually do that, we will occasionally talk about it and never do anything until there is that time pressure.
Oh well, life is interesting and takes all sorts of turns. The ultimate plan is still to build out where kids will have room to explore and dig holes, where there is no distraction of neighborhood activity or quick jaunts to the store which end up taking up half the day, where family is close by to help one another out, and where we can create a unique and interesting house that is different from anything found in the stamped out neighborhoods of a development. I am still looking forward to living in my Tudor house. :)
(MCL)
with 
(personal library)
I’ve been looking at a couple F houses too. They’re pretty neat houses, although the two I’ve looked at so far had too much work needed to be done on them. Whenever I go looking at houses it makes me so glad I live in the Tri-Cities! I’d have to be paying so much more if I lived in most cities.