Housing hopes

I've held off on posting about this for a while, partly because of time, and partly because I didn't really have anything definite to report.

Yesterday we got word that our offer was accepted to purchase a place a little ways up the road from us. It's a 1999 double-wide (probably the largest double-wide I've ever seen -- over 2,000 square feet of floor space) on an acre of land that looks like it shouldn't flood under reasonable circumstances (hey, that's all you can ask down here -- it's out of all the flood plains and flood zones, but there's never any telling what the next storm might do.)

Although the place is a little farther from the church than we would have liked, the price is right, and that pretty much makes the place right. Since it's a foreclosure, the interior is beat up a bit. (I'll refrain from a rant about people who tear things up because they can't have them any more -- I'm sure it's frustrating, but when you punch holes in the walls of a place you're losing to foreclosure, you're damaging a stranger's house, and it's not their fault you can't keep it. Deliberately damaging someone else's house is vandalism, and a temper tantrum is no excuse. Sorry, okay, I'll stop ranting now. Really.) The place seems solid, though, in the ways that really matter, and we can fix drywall and replace carpets. In a sense, I suppose it's almost a favor -- there's probably no way in this world we could have afforded the place if it were in perfect condition. We've got a home inspection coming up (one was done several months ago, but not for us, and it didn't check the well and septic, both of which are obviously big issues.)

We're hoping to be able to move in before the end of November, so we don't have pay rent for December; I'd like to be moved before it gets wintery here, anyhow. (Yeah, yeah, I know, the winters here are a joke compared to places my wife and I have lived -- but why move in sleet and slush if you can help it?) It's possible I can post a few pics of the place as time rolls on and we get further into the deal. There's still a lot to be done with mortgage company, lawyers, and whatnot. This will, of course, be the first house my wife or I have owned. We figure at this point on staying there for a few years to build some equity and then selling it to move to a stick-built house, if we can.