Wednesday, August 22nd – Tuesday, August 28th
Because I don’t have anything new to share for week three, I decided to use this post to answer one of the many questions we were asked when we started this adventure: “Why?”
This is something we were asked by a number of people when we first decided to sell our house and build a new one.
Why are you selling? Why are you building and not buying an existing home?
Like many personal decisions individuals and couples make throughout their lives, the simple answer can be: “It’s none of your business.” And for some people, that may be the answer we gave them, and the answer they deserved to hear. But for the sake of this post, I will share why we decided to do what we’re doing.
The home we were living in was absolutely fine. We enjoyed the location and the home itself. We had put a lot of time and thought into the changes we made and the upgrades we invested in. We were happy there.
Fast forward to January/February of 2018. We started noticing a number of homes in the area selling quickly, and for more than we would have expected. John had owned the house for 5 years at that point and we seriously started crunching some numbers.
We also started looking at upgrades and repairs that we would need to make within the next few years:
- New fence for the backyard
- Siding
- Roof
- Flooring for most of the house
Upgrades and repairs quickly add up and it started to look like it’d be silly not to sell.
Once we decided that spring/summer of 2018 would be a good time for us to sell, we started looking at where we’d go. We always knew we’d want to build at some point, why not now?!
We had a mental list of things we’d want in our next house and we knew we probably wouldn’t get everything we wanted if we bought an existing home. We’ve attended the Parade of Homes together every year since we got married and we knew what we liked and didn’t like. We also had a builder in mind. Building sounded perfect!
The only other piece of the puzzle was where. We wanted to stay in East Troy, preferably in the Village, but there weren’t a lot of options. Actually, there weren’t any. Not a single parcel of vacant, residential, land was for sale within the Village of East Troy. We spent a fair amount of time researching lots and driving around. At the time, finding the location proved to be the most challenging task.
We did eventually pick a 1 acre lot in the Troy Hill Estates subdivision in the Town of East Troy. While we won’t be in the Village any longer, it is a nice area and we’re thrilled to have such a large lot for us, and the puppies, to one day enjoy.
When it comes down to it, the decisions you, or you and your spouse, make are your own, and no one else is entitled to know the “why” behind what you did.
