2. The Search

Being a guy that is a paid professional in helping find a new house, I did the basic step of creating a search meeting our criteria:

• In the same general area - we want to stay close to Isaac, Misty and the grand kids & our parents
• Affordable (remember that retirement thing?)
• Bonus Factors:
• No HOA
• A Sewing Room for Joann
• A Shop for John
• Did I mention affordable?

So, I built the search, and kept an eye on it. The first houses we not very reassuring, they were way small in both house and lot, and not much in the way of a location that we'd really be excited about. I waited and watched, then waited some more, and got a little more disappointed.

Every week or two the same blurry picture of a house showed up. The image was taken from the front of the house, looking through a chain-link fence at a blurry image of a house that was listed as somewhere in the 1700 sq ft. range. I would glance at it, then delete it.

But then the price started dropping...

• The 1st drop was $31k. It's not unusual for people to start high on the price (some people think that's still where the market was), and then adjust it down some. This was a big jump right off the bat.
• The 2nd drop was an additional $27k - ok, now you're getting my attention.
• The 3rd drop was an additional $25k - fine, I'll actually click and see what's up with this fuzzy picture house

But wait, there's more!

• The 4th drop was an additional $16k
• The 5th drop an additional $15k

Let me save you the mental effort of adding that up: $114,000!

So, now you understand why we took a deeper look. Next up: realizing just what the house is - and has.