1, 2, 3, MOVE

Evan and I put our townhouse on the market this summer in hopes of selling and moving to a one-story ranch style home with a yard that Ben could grow up in. But... that didn't exactly happen. Literally the day we put the for sale sign in front of our house, the bottom fell out in our neighborhood. We found out that the most recent sale was WAY lower than what we were expecting, and because of that, others in the neighborhood with homes on the market ended up lowering their asking prices. Love this economy... not. We decided to rethink our strategy for the future. Because the rental market is (fortunately) very strong in our neighborhood, we decided we will rent for a year, to see if the market will even out a little bit. Renting would give us the freedom to move somewhere fun for a year. We didn't want to buy anything without selling our home first, so we set our sights on renting a fun condo or house in downtown Raleigh. If we don't do it now, we will never do it. And how fun will it be to be downtown? Walking distance from the Y, great restaurants, parks, museums, trails, the list goes on.

Fast forward a few weeks and we are now all moved in to our downtown condo! We love it. Renters are moved into our townhouse, and, luckily, so far so good! After just being in our new place for a little over a week, we already feel at home. Although the new place is much smaller than our old house, all of the space is actually used on a daily basis. In our townhouse because of the multiple levels, Ben never really played in his room, and the stairs.. well don't even get me started. Reminder to myself for the future- never, I repeat,  never buy a 3-story home- especially one that you have to walk up stairs to get into the front door.

Things I LOVE about our new place:
It's cozy
It's sooo quiet
The location: We can walk everywhere. Saturday morning Evan walked Ben to breakfast while I slept in... heaven.
It's brand new. No one has lived there before. So I can feel good knowing Ben is crawling all over clean, fresh carpet and floors.
The bathrooms..  one word: awesome
We use ALL of the space.
Ben actually plays in his room, and LOVES it.
We are saving $$$$

Things I could live without:
Parking is not so great
The dryer takes FOREVER
The washer/dryer are much smaller than our old ones

Overall we are so happy with our decision. We're having a little downtown adventure before Ben gets old enough to go to school, and before we decide to have a second child. This also gives us time to really think about what we want when we do decide to buy a house.