Our Down Size House #

Somewhere around the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018, Mary and I were in a bad place. We were looking at the possibility of a trial separation. In the past when we would blow up at each other, I had no place to go. I have no real friends here in California so Mary thought let’s fix that. We can buy a smaller house that could become our retirement home if we patch things up otherwise I have a place were I would and could live.

This decision came about because there was this perfect house that came on the market in a gated over 55 community and we had the cash for the down payment. We looked at the house and put in an offer. In the process of putting in the offer we finally got a number of what we could qualify for as a mortgage. We knew we were the most qualified for the purchase of this home but when they as for a best and final, this gave us an opportunity to withdraw the offer and that was what we did. Just wasn’t interested in playing this game for a house that was more than 1000 square feet smaller than our current home.

With new numbers that we qualified and knowing what we could sell our current house at, Mary went to work looking for homes that we qualified for and clearly could afford. Mary loves looking at properties and especially if we knew that we could afford them and fell easily within our price range. She and Penny would go out looking at homes during the week and on the weekend we would go to see the homes that made her short list.