On Hold

After meeting with our realtor last night and talking about what we need to do to get our house market-ready, we've decided to wait until February to list the house. It would just be too much of a rush to try to get everything painted and staged to have it on the market before the summer cycle ends, and we think we'll have a better chance of selling it for what we want if we wait until the winter dead period passes. That and maybe the economy will improve!

The other huge benefit is that we'll be able to add to our equity and down-payment fund and it will be more likely that we'll be able to find exactly what we're looking for without feeling like we're rushing into things. I like to have a plan, so I'm happy with the course of action we've got planned out at this point.

I think the other aspect of this whole situation that was giving me such great anxiety is that buying a new house in the same metropolitan area is pretty much saying that we're not leaving Cincinnati for a good, long while. That was part of the reason we bought where we did - we thought we'd end up heading east shortly after. We bought in a neighborhood with good re-sale value and bought a house that had attractive features. Had we known that we would end up making this city our super-long-term home (see? I still can't bring myself to say "permanent"), we probably would have waited another year and bought in a different area. I guess that's what happens when you're 23 and a little short-sighted about these things, not realizing how lucky we were to have both found jobs in the area.

I miss the NYC metropolitan area like crazy, and miss my family even more. It makes me tear up just thinking about it. Unfortunately, this is where our home is. We have jobs, friends, and a more reasonable cost of living. Maybe one day we'll make it back out there, but we need to stop wondering when and start enjoying what we're building here.