Moving...again

As I mentioned earlier, we are moving again. And, no, we did not buy. I know what you are thinking. Why not? We get this question a lot. Especially from people who bought during the boom years here. "How could you not buy now?" Prices have dropped considerably, but we feel that if we did buy now, we would need to commit to the house for 7-10 years, and right now we can't find anything that we are willing to give that kind of commitment to in our price range. And for this NOVA girl, I'm not so sure I'm ready to even commit to Maryland for that long. I still have people surprised when they hear I grew up in Northern Virginia. "Then why are you living in Maryland?" Sometimes I wonder that myself... No, really we do love it here. Another reason we aren't buying just yet - we can find rentals for less than it would cost us to buy. And with nothing appreciating these days, it just doesn't make much sense to us to buy. So, we continue to save our pennies, and look forward to owning someday, soon.

Now on to why we are moving. We've been struggling with this decision almost since we moved into our current rental home. Our current home was a great deal. We have a large backyard, and lots of storage space, for a great price. About $500 less a month than we saw for any other single family home. But, that came with some issues. The house has been a rental property for almost 20 years - and the owners (out of state) don't feel the need to keep anything up. So, we've got old carpet, old linoleum, original leaky windows (have I mentioned our utility bills in the winter? Or summer?), moss for a front yard, smelly basement... I could go on. We offered to put in some labor to help improve the place, but they weren't willing to do that. So we made a list. A list of things we would want fixed in a new rental property, and things we were willing to give up. And then we thought about it, and I think we were just about to the point where we were willing to deal with the situation for a couple more years while we figured out what we really wanted. Our lease was for a year, but then was suppose to go month to month, so we figured we could keep our eyes peeled for something better, and then take it when we saw it. And then we got the letter. Rent increasing (by more than 6%, mind you) and a commitment to stay another year. That was more than I could take. So we started looking seriously. Luckily, Sam's brother, David, was staying with us for the summer, and was kind enough to watch the kids night after night while we looked at properties. We finally found one. We'll have a little less space, and a much smaller yard, but we'll also get newer windows, gas heating, gas range, fenced yard, garage, secluded shadey park across the parking lot, walking distance to the elementary school (a good one at that), a short distance from the chapel, with a bigger kitchen adjacent to the deck, and a master bathroom that more than one person can stand in at a time, with a walk in closet. Oh, and no smelly rooms. That was on the top of my list. It's a townhome, but an end unit, so we only share one wall, and we have our own driveway and garage. And the landlord is great - they live just down the road, and they lived in the home up until a year ago when they started renting it. They just contacted us to see if we would be willing to keep up the yard if they paid to have it professionally landscaped. Yay! A landlord that cares about the house! So, here it is:We move in a week from Saturday, and then Harrison will start school on the following Monday, so it's a busy time for us. We'll post more pictures, when we get settled (in about a year, right?)