So, things are crazy.

We have been scouring Realtor.com and other real estate websites trying to find our perfect house—the right price with the right amenities in the right area. And we have about 50 houses on our “potential” list and were getting VERY excited about house-hunting next week.

Until we started freaking out about our house not selling.

We’ve only had about five showings in the three weeks it’s been on the market—and we KNOW that it is going to take a bit longer to sell (our neighbors priced their house WAY below market—so that they were losing money—and it still took five months to sell). We are offering $10,000 to “use as you choose” AND we just reduced the price—and still nothing. >:XX My boss says that he doesn’t think it’s the price at all—it’s just a dead market right now…and nothing in that range is selling quickly.

Technically we can still qualify for another VA Loan if this house doesn’t sell (Tom still has a big chunk of eligibility left), but then we are stuck with two mortgages which we certainly can’t afford. (Maybe if we knew it would only be for a month, but how can we chance that?)

So, after a steady month of searching for houses, we are now looking for rentals. We really did not want to rent…

1. Because finding a rental is hard.
2. Because living in a rental after owning is harder.
3. Because rentals aren’t likely to take pets, let alone three.
4. Because rentals are more expensive than buying.

Yet we are looking for rentals so we hopefully won’t be in this same position in two years when we are ready to move—and don’t have the listing discount courtesy of a place I’ve worked for four years.

So we are not QUITE as excited about house-hunting anymore. 🙁

And if we are seriously looking for rentals (which I guess we are), this is WAY too soon to be looking—if we find something we like/want, we will have to start paying on it ASAP (dropping probably $3,000 for rent and deposit) and we won’t even be there (unless I moved up early, which sounds great…but then I’d lose pay here, which isn’t great). But we can’t really change the leave dates at this point.

So we are going to be looking at rentals AND houses, hoping we find a perfect rental AND giving our agent a Top 3 list, in case we actually decide to buy (i.e. if our house sells and we make a chunk of change and we love a resale house better than a rental house) so she can write a contract for us after we leave.

This is just SO hard to deal with, especially for someone who likes to be in control of things. :no: