Investing in the Future?

Suzie and I have been talking about buying a house. Yeah, I know--It's such a big step, yada, yada--I'm sure my readers would have a caution flag flying. Well you know what? It is a big step. It's also a timely step. This is a day and age when it's totally a buyer's market. House prices are likely as low as they're going to go.

Some may say that it's an odd thing: Shopping for a house as a couple of single people. The truth is, way back a hundred or so years ago that's exactly what Teresa and I did. The market was ripe and I said, "You know, even if we don't end up staying together I think we should pool our resources and buy." That was the best move we could have possibly made. Literally only a year later our house was worth double that. Of course, that was a little bit of luck to have beat a housing boom like that.

Sue and I would like to believe that we're going to be together for the long haul and we've talked off and on at length about the problems we would face about combining our lives. It may be a surprise to most, but our religious differences are way down the list (as in not really on the list at all). Recently we were at her house talking and I said (basically quoting) that I "didn't see any space for me here" as I motioned around us. I was talking in the "physical space" sense. Although her house was of a decent size, there was really no space for my stuff or me anywhere. Kitchen, bedroom, garage--You name it. It wasn't any one thing really--More of a combination of things. She still has two grown sons living at home. That translates to having two bedrooms in use, two cars more in the driveway, and who knows what all. She also has half of her garage currently being used (until spring) as a household storage unit. If you combine all those things there really is no place for me to just "absorb" into her life if I want to. Add to that the fact that how easy it is to offend someone that has basically built everything in the house from the ground up in the 17 years she's lived there by suggesting any kind of difference in the status quo and you have the potential for a problem.

The obvious solution? Move into a new house!

We drove by a place the other day and looked at it, peering in windows and such. It's in the same housing area she lives in but "farther in" towards the back, or outskirts if you will. It's a really nice 3-bedroom rambler with attached two car garage like most have. The kicker? It's sitting on a seldom-traveled (it's in the back as I said) on a full acre of ground! It's a huge lot, but (there's always a "but" isn't there?) it has power lines running across the back 25% or so of it. That fact alone may be why the price is as it is, but it's not really a deterrent to us. At least so far. The beauty of the place is that it's higher ground than her existing house is (about a half mile away) so it's a lot sunnier, and the size of the place and being on the corner gives it a ton of space for anything we'd ever want to do. It's also hardly landscaped at all, so we'd be collaborating on everything instead of "changing" everything. We both agreed that just landscaping and fencing the place would contribute huge to raising its value. From what we saw the house needed absolutely nothing. It was build in 86 so it's not old really, and the inside looks like it has been very well maintained and needs nothing at all.

Yeah, it's a big idea, but it's an exciting one. We still have nothing in concrete yet, but we're looking into it. Who knows?