Big Kid Decisions

So, I am going to dump a lot of stuff in here. I need to process this and writing helps me do it!

A few weeks ago Jake and I started looking at houses for sale. We don't plan to actually move until Novemeber/December but is way fun to look. (We are looking for a forever home. A house we can raise our kids in.) In the process Jerad and Sierra told us of this housing addition in Sand Springs. You pick a plot, a floor plan and build! We began to check out floor plans and toy with the idea. Then we went last Saturday just to talk to see a model home and get some questions answered.

Man did that get our minds working! This is a virtual tour of close to what we like.

There are great advantages to building:

• Everything is new.
• Everything is how you want it. There is little changing stuff to what you like (Which costs more money.)
• No dealing with inspections.
• You can design the home and then pay for it when it is finished. Nice! That would be perfect timing for us. (It takes 4-5 months to build). You close on the house when it is completely built.

Then there are advantages to buying a home:

• It is cheaper.
• You can slowly change things as you can afford them.

We see that both options can be good. But here's the issue. The government is doing this great thing and is giving first-time home buyers $8,000 when they buy a home. We don't want to pass that up. The deadline for this is December 1, 2008. You have to have closed on the house on December 1st! If we want to build, we need to start soon in order to close on the house by that day. BUT there is always the chance that our perfect home is waiting for us to buy it for cheaper than it would cost us to build.

Scenario: We go look at the houses on the market to decide now whether to build or buy. Ok, we find our perfect home for cheaper. So, we decide not to build and wait to get this house. We wait until we are ready to purchase the house (4-5 months from now). But we find out the house is no longer on the market. So, we look for another house. No perfect houses and we have missed the chance to build in time to get the $8,000.

Boo!

Being a big kid is way harder than I thought it would be!