Jenn and I drove around yesterday and weeded out the neighborhoods and houses that we didn’t like, and today we went out with our realtor’s partner, Terri, to look at the remaining properties on our “list.” (Gregory, the realtor, is on vacation in Mexico. I’d like to be on vacation, too.)

As it turns out, we had like nine different places on the list to look at, but yesterday we weeded them down to four, and today we found out that two of them are pending sale, so that left two. Which was okay, since we found one house that we were really excited about from looking at the pictures and that one was still available.

We went in that one and I was, to say the least, underwhelmed. I’m not sure if I had built up my expectations too much or if it really just wasn’t the house for us, but we were really disappointed once we got inside.

We didn’t even look in the second house - turns out it’s right next to some train tracks, and I’m so not into dealing with that.

Which means the search continues. I’ve heard that it takes a while, but, man, that one house really had me hoping we could cut this short.

In the meantime, I’ve noticed that limiting my budget (and, thus, my monthly payments) as much as I have has also limited the number of properties that I’ve seen that fit my space requirements. While I at first thought 1500 square feet would be enough, I find that those are barely larger than our current apartment of 1100 square feet, and with the layouts they have, they generally feel smaller. My new goal is closer to the 2000 square foot range, which means I’ve gotta up my spending limit. It may be harder in the first couple of years we’re there, but we’ll manage somehow. If it’s somewhere we can live for several years, I think it’ll be worth it.