When my husband and I moved back to Orlando last summer, we knew that we were back for good and really wanted to put down some roots. Unfortunately, the timing of the move coupled with my husband starting out with a non-permenant position meant renting for a while was the only thing that made sense. That said we spent a lot of time stalking Zillow looking at houses.
Fast forward about 6 months. We have both settled into great permanent positions. We are pregnant and through the first trimester. We have about 6 months left on our lease. And housing prices are starting to go up slowly. It is time to start really looking at purchasing a home.
We started our search with a real estate agent. She was really great and set up some searches based on our desired location and other things we were looking for in a house. In addition to the house, we wanted to be close or close-ish to work, family and other places we frequent. I also needed a neighborhood where I would feel safe running with a stroller in the dark. We also began examining the schools in the areas we liked, and slowly our geographic search got even smaller.
After looking at what was really on the market and not just what was showing up on Zillow, we were a bit disappointed. First there were far fewer houses on the market than it appeared. Second, many of the houses needed more work than we wanted to do before they would be move in ready. While I am not really against renovations, I would rather spend my time with our new baby than ripping out a kitchen. So we felt like we were back at square one.
In the area we were looking, most of the land had been developed, but there were a couple of builders still working on new houses in the area. We had spoken with one right after we moved down, but had kind of written off the idea of building. After looking at what was on the market, we figured we would take one more look at building and go from there. One saturday morning we headed to the model to take a look at ask some questions. It was just supposed to be a short trip...famous last words. We spent several hours there on Saturday and even longer on Sunday. By the end of the weekend we were under contract for our very own new house.
We are a couple of months out from that weekend and I am still super excited about the house. It is everything we wanted and we got to choose the things that were important to us.
I think we may be a little nuts, because baby will be about 10 weeks old when we move, but I can't wait to be in our very own home. This is also why we won't have a nursery right away. We plan on the baby sleeping in our room for a while anyway.
Any tips for moving with a little one? Have you ever built a house? What is the best thing about moving to a new home?
