Moved, finally---and pros and cons

After two years of planning, the kids and I have moved to Ely. Kevin is still in Vegas, working, and will move the end of June when his job here starts. God, I miss him. He's visiting next weekend and I can hardly wait!

Over the holiday weekend I called the owner of the house that we made an offer on. We'd found another house and were on the verge of making an offer on that one--and couldn't do it without making sure we couldn't have the house we really love.

I'd asked my realtor to ask the owners if they'd agree to sell for the appraised value, should the appraisal come in under the asking price. She said she was sure they wouldn't. I decided to ask myself, and found the owners completely pleasant and easy to deal with.

Turns out that they are willing to sell for the appraised value. Not only that, but the wiring (which our realtor had told us had to be replaced) is fine and the furnace is also in good working order (although it is an oil furnace and we will probably replace it with a more efficient one.) Our realtor had also told us that the windows across the front of the house made the house hard to heat--turns out that is wrong as well. The windows face the west (nearly the entire front of the house is glass) and the back of the house is built into the mountain, so the house is heated by solar power and very well insulated. I was in it on Thursday and the house was warm, even though the owners have the furnace set to 50 degrees, and it was overcast and snowing outside.

Of course, I'm still going back and forth about what to do--whether to buy right now. Here's my pro and con list:

PROS:

The house is big enough--the only rental we've been able to find in six months of looking is a 500 square foot apartment.

With half an acre of land, we can grow a significant portion of our own food. The backyard already has a ton of berries and currants growing in it. The soil is rich, spongy loam and should be fertile (judging by the growth already there.)

The backyard is completely private--we're on a hill and the neighbors to either side can't see into our yard. Also, there is no way of telling from looking at the house that we have such a large plot in the back. Should TSHTF, the privacy back there should be an added level of protection.

Because of the size and privacy of our yard, we could easily have a few hens, or even a couple of goats, without our neighbors being aware or complaining.

Going by the old three times your annual income rule of thumb, the house is affordable. It should actually be about 2.5 times our annual income.

Our mortgage will only be about twenty-five percent of our bring home income.

We plan on living in this house long-term. We aren't buying as an investment.

We have secured a loan with a low interest rate (5.75 percent, 30-year fixed.) Our payment will be considerably less than what we were paying to rent in Las Vegas.

We would be able to rent our house out for the price of the mortgage if we had to.

The house is walking distance to the middle school, both mine and Kevin's work, my parents' house and downtown. It's within two miles of the grocery store.

CONS:

If we wait another year or two, we might be able to buy the house or another one like it for much less.

This is a very small town. If one of us (especially Kevin. He earns much more than me, and he is a casino dealer. I'm a special education teacher's aide, a job with more security in hard times.) is laid off of work there aren't as many other opportunities as there were in Las Vegas (on the other hand, there is much less competition for each job.)

We still have about $8000 in consumer debt, which we would rather be done with before buying a house.