Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Real Estate Venture...maybe

My hubby wants to buy a house or, rather an additional house...as in, a second house with a second mortgage and it's making my head spin just typing this. The buyer's market "fever" has him and he's hankering to cash in while things are good. The way to do this would involve more work on his part and more hours away. This does not make me happy; however, he wants to have a retirement home ready and waiting when our time comes. Basically, the means justifying the ends. I guess so. I just keep thinking, if he works himself into an early grave, what do I care about a retirement home that I can't share with him?

He called me today to reiterate his goal with me, claiming that he'll have this done by next year. He will pick up more clients and possibly go back to graveyard shifts, if necessary. How did all this start? Where did he get this idea? Why, House Hunters, of course! Okay, not just House Hunters. How about House Hunters, My First Place, Property Virgins, Bang for your Buck, etc.... We watch these shows like they're going out of style! We talk about which homes we like and what we like about them. We've discussed what we'd do differently, if we were to sell our current home and buy a new one. The prospect of building, updating what we currently have (my kitchen...please, God, my kitchen) and increasing the value over all.

As we watch, he'll get on the web and search the current housing market of the area we're watching. I can't tell you how many Texas homes I've seen in the past few weeks! Yep! Everything is definitely bigger in Texas. We figure, for what we'd get for our house here, we could by something spectacular there (I'm talking 3000+ square feet, formal dining, cathedral ceilings, loft space, ginormous bedrooms, wrap around porches, patios, a swimming pool all on a 1+ acre of land. Even still, I really don't want to move to Texas. Currently, he's exploring the Henderson, Nevada market but we're still considering St. George.

I'm on the fence about it all. Wonder if his buyer's fever is here to stay? He will do that sometimes; get all riled up and excited about something, then the drive peters away. I can't tell if that will be the case this time or not. Will we still be talking about an additional home in three months? I guess time will tell...

2 comments:

Tasha said...

We watch those shows all the time too. We keep looking at houses in Texas, and I've actually contemplated Austin...momentarily. I do hear good things about it though. But for what we *just* paid for our house, we could get like three houses down there...and our house was a steal in the market in our area.

Whatever you guys decide to do, I'm sure it'll be the right thing in the right time.

Enchantress said...

Tasha - I hope so. It just makes me so nervous.

Austin, eh? Same here. It's so pretty and has so much culture. Take a look at Prosper (not to far from Plano and Dallas). Those homes are absolutely gorgeous! Last year, the city had the lowest crime rate of the state (probably due to the type of residents who live there and can afford those homes).

I can only imagine the real estate "exchange" for you. We know someone currently renting a townhome in your area for $1800 and it only has 700 square feet. Yikes!

When you're watching, are you sometimes floored by what some of those homes, specifically condos cost in some metro areas? I'll be sitting there thinking, "Dude, you're okay with spending $500,000 on a condo with 1,000 square feet?! I think you ought to think about relocating!" :)