A Hunting We Will Go

For a while now, Liz and I have been doing some serious debating on buying a home. Asking the normal questions; Can we afford it? What if we move? Can we expand with our growing family? Where should we live? How close/far should we live to family/friends?

Obviously money is going to be the biggest question. I mean, the whole problem with the housing market started with people not being able to afford their loans in the first place. With that being said, we've started looking at short sales. Homes that were too expensive to own and are foreclosed or drawing near to that dreaded word. Banks want to get as much as they can out of the home before bankruptcy is the only option left. If a bank has been holding onto a house that is not making money and no one is interested in buying it, the price falls. That's where we come in.

We've found a house in Federal Way, just a few blocks from Brigadoon Elementary School. The banking asking price is low enough that it's quite a bit under our max pre-approval amount. This is a good thing. Bad thing is that there is some inevitable work that needs to be done. Fortunately, it's not work that is crucial to being able to live there. We could repair/replace while we lived there. There is also a tremendous opportunity to upgrade just about everything.

Here are some pictures from the website:

The roof has never been replaced since the existence of this house. It's not going to last much longer. But there is a great layout for both the front and back yard.

What's unfortunate about this picture, is that you can't see the bright orange counter tops to match so perfectly with their white cupboard counter parts.

The most up to date part of the house minus the lights. They're the old school ones hanging from copper chains.

This will be a deal breaker if the spidey blanket doesn't come with the house. No spidey. No saley.

If the bank agrees to go as low as we're hoping, this becomes a great bargain, even with the inevitable repairs and updating. There's also the option to add some money onto the final price of the home and use it towards the repairs.

There is a lot of prayer that needs to happen with this. Of course, we always want to make sure that we're operating inside the will of God and we want to make sure that we're being good stewards with what God has blessed us with.

Will you join us in prayer that we will be able to discern the voice and direction of God in regards to this house? As well as all the financial pieces that will accompany such an investment. We feel that He has allowed other great homes to fall through for preparation for the one He wants us to have. We just want to make sure we're still listening.

Jesse