Laying down roots

Since February, Kevin and I have been scheming and lusting over planning a little trip to Miami Beach, Florida as a last little hoo-rah(!) before actively pursuing to start our family. A mini-second-honeymoon, if you will. Then, almost immediately, our pre-parent responsibility brains (as I so-lovingly call them) chime in with "why would we want to spend money on a trip right before trying to start a family? shouldn't we just save the money? wouldn't that be the responsible thing to do?" After yoyo-ing between these two mindsets for about a month now, we finally got the push we needed this weekend.

Remember back in July/August when we were thinking of purchasing a condo? It turns out the exact one we were looking into has gone down in price by $30,000. That sparked our interest, to say the least, so we continued to look at units in that complex. Turns out there are two listed at under $100K. Sounds too good to be true, right? Not so fast...there's a catch: those are both short sales. My dad and his realtor friend will take us through a couple of the properties we're interested in and explain to us everything there is to know (and worry about) when thinking of purchasing a short sale property. I understand it's quite the process and definitely not for everyone, as it takes often months before a decision is made. However, the beauty is, we could quite possibly get our hands on a property that we love for an unbelievable price (most likely quite comparable to the rent we're throwing away each month now!). And the bottom line? Kevin and I are happy where we are now, we are in a month-to-month lease with a great landlord and we're not under any major pressure to pursue a property immediately. Thus, getting a great deal on a short sale just may be the way to go. And, we both have the mindset that if all else fails, it just wasn't meant to be.

Looks like Miami Beach is being shoved to the back burner as we focus on our more immediate needs. The last time we entertained this condo discussion, jobs were still up in the air. Kevin wasn't sure if he wanted to (or was going to need to) pursue a job outside of Oregon. Now our priorities have changed. We're eager to start a family and start laying down some roots in Oregon. It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out.