HOUSE!

Well, it's not completely official ... yet ... but we are set to close in two weeks on our house!

Here's the scoop:

It's a 1971 1500-foot 3-bed/2-bath/2-car-(attached)-garage house in south Garland.


For you locals, it's off of LaPrada at Northwest Highway, about a mile east of 635.

• Ceramic tile throughout most of the house.
• Two living areas.
• Nice big back yard with a beautiful new fence. (This may be my favorite feature of the house.)
• Two big trees and a storage shed in the back yard.
• Sidewalk in front, with a baby tree near the street.

We will do a bit of work to it before we move in:

• There are decorative bars between the two living areas, and in the master bath area - these will be removed (no jail feel, please!) (I'll work on posting a Word document I've put together with pictures/narration of the "before" house.)
• We will paint everything.
• We will redo floors in the kitchen, breakfast room, and carpet in bedrooms.

The plan:

This is not our "forever" house. This is a great place to start, but is more an investment move than anything. We're taking advantage of a buyer's market to get into a house for less than market value. We'll get the first-time home buyers' tax credit (you must live in it for 3 years to prevent repayment of the credit), and then will sell for more than we paid and roll the gains (tax-free after two years as your primary residence!) into the "forever" house at that time.

That said, please know that, after we made sure the numbers worked, we also made sure this is a place we want to live, and are very excited about it!

Watch your inboxes soon for an official Note-Our-New-Address card in a couple of weeks, and for a holiday/housewarming party in December! (We hope to be moved in by Thanksgiving.)