We're rapidly outgrowing our current home. Elli needs new equipment, and all of it is much larger than her current stuff. We can't get rid of the baby gear (crib, swing, high chair, clothes, toys, bathtub, and on and on and on) yet. We broke down last week and rented a storage unit. I'm in the process of sorting, packing, and storing to try to free up some space so we can breathe again and so we can hopefully sell the house faster when we decide to put it up.
We know we'll need to move no later than next year and definitely before another child joins the family (if that happens -- still not sure). So we are starting to look at houses, mortgage payments, and building vs buying.
House-hunting is one of the oddest activities I've ever done. I always heard that "Location, location, location" thing about real estate, but now we're seeing it in action. The most mind-boggling part of this whole thing is how muddy the decision-making process is. Our pros and cons lists don't help much!
Case in point.
We looked at a 3-bedroom, 2 bath brick ranch in our current town. So we know the school district and love it. We could keep our community center and gym memberships, shop at our same stores, and drive the same distances to everything, including Sam's preschool this fall. The original owners are selling it, and have taken very good care of it for the past 26 years. The hallways are wide enough for Elli's wheelchair and we'd have room to put a ramp in the oversized garage so we can easily get her in the house. We'd have to modify the master bath to work for Elli -- it has a shower now that her bathchair needs to roll into. The deck out back is just a couple inches lower than the threshhold, so it won't be difficult to get her out there. The bedrooms are a good size with nice deep closets. The house has ample storage with the oversized garage, the basement, and lots of closets. The kitchen is big with lots of drawers, plenty of counter space, and a dishwasher and pantry. The family room is gorgeous -- brick fireplace with wood built-in bookshelves, beams, and a cathedral ceiling. The neighborhood is beautiful -- lots of mature trees, great location right in the center of town, but yet amazingly, tranquilly quiet with little traffic.
Drawbacks include the high price and that we can't change the main bathroom or we'd sacrfice the house's only bathtub. Property taxes are kind of high, but that's part of being in a great school district. But the biggest drawback is that it only has a partial basement, and none of it is finished. It's plumbed for a bathroom already, but it needs a lot of work. If we didn't add the 4th bedroom downstairs, it would be tough to sell in the future.
Then we looked at a four-bedroom brick ranch one township to the west. It's 11 years old, so it has a much more open floorplan, wider hallways, and two full bathrooms on the main floor (both master and main have bathtubs). So we could modify one bathroom for Elli and not lose a tub. Other major pluses to the house are that the bedrooms are larger, easier to get into for Elli, and the basement is beautifully finished. It has another bathroom with shower and linen closet, huge 4th bedroom, study, and a rec room with a built-in entertainment center with almost as much cabinet and shelf space as my entire current kitchen.
Drawbacks include a much higher rise into the house, so the ramp in the garage would have to go up the side and then across the front, eating up a lot of storage space. The basement has less storage space because so much of it is now living space, and with a smaller garage and no shed, storing stuff may be difficult. We'll also need to find room for an elevator somewhere so Elli can use the lower level too. Getting Elli out to the deck will require us to take her out the garage and around to the back. The kitchen is smallish -- only a little larger than our current one, though it has a lot of drawers and a pantry. It's an eat-in kitchen, and the house has no dining room, so you're stuck with what you've got. The biggest drawback is the house's location. It's much further from everything we currently visit, and it's built towards the front of a neighborhood right off a limited-access highway. It's a lower-traffic road than an interstate, they built sound barrier walls to help with the noise, and being 600 feet from the on-ramp will make getting into town really convenient. But you can still hear road noise during rush hour. We didn't have to raise our voices to talk outside, so it isn't deafening. But it's there and we'll have lots of cars coming in and out of the neighborhood. Could make it hard to sell in the future, especially if traffic picks up on this highway (the whole area is still being built up.)
And now for the cost comparison. Drumroll please. The second house costs less than the first one. By $17,000. So monetarily, the second house is by far the better value.
It isn't that simple, though. I am getting quotes on mortgages so we can evaluate the cost factor in our budget. Proprety taxes are significantly higher for the second house, even though its value is lower. So can you believe it? The payments would only be $80 different per month.
But we can't stop there. The first house would need the basement finished and a 4th bedroom put in at some time. So we'd have to save up the money and have this done, because we won't have time or know-how to do much of it on our own. Then you have the house reassessed and start paying property taxes on the new (higher) value. It will take us several years to have that money, but I'm guessing we'll need the bedroom sooner than that (Sam and Anna can't share rooms indefinitely, and if Elli continues to have sleep problems, the girls may not be able to share either).
I don't remember buying our first house being this complex. We knew that it would be a starter home for us, so we just didn't factor as much in, I guess. Picking a house that will fit our unique needs, be sellable in the future, fits the budget without restricting us to rice and beans and no fun for years to come, and is in a school district that will work well for Elli is really tough. The school district issue is the biggest one for me. I'm in a comfort zone, and even though I've heard great things about the schools in the next township over, making a big change like this makes my stomach hurt.
So we're much in prayer this week as we evaluate if now is the right time to make such a drastic change to our budget, if so is one of these houses is the right one, and how to get the current house ready to sell. The good news is that housing interests rates have stopped rising for the moment, so if we wait a few months or a year, maybe it won't cost quite as many thousands in interest over the course of the loan.
