Last night, we looked at a house.

While we were moving from GC to Indy and transitioning from employment to unemployment, it didn’t make any sense for us to think very seriously about buying a house. We, while we still had jobs, talked about buying a house - we’d move into the city, rent from a friend for a while, and take stock of our options, then find a cute little fixer-upper somewhere on the Near East side of town. All that discussion was put on hold when I lost my job and David’s year-long term at Taylor ended. Our only option was to rent.

Still, as we moved into this rental house, I was thinking of it as a short-term home. I have a job now. We have since put a lot of work into the house (cosmetic work, mostly) and are getting pretty comfortable. And moving is such a pain…

But renting is giving away money. We’re doing the best we can - we’re giving our money to a friend who’s investing it in this neighborhood - but we’re not making a difference ourselves. It’s been my dream since I first came to this city 5 years ago to do what our friends are doing - investing their time, their money and their lives in this mission field. We’re doing some of that, but in a transient way.

One of my friends, Sarah, told me last week that she’d found a house we should check out. The last time she said that to me, she was talking about the most wonderful house (ever, in my opinion) - one she ended up buying. So, I started the dialog again with David. We talked several times and decided that it couldn’t hurt to go look. The house was inexpensive, liveable, air-conditioned (YES!), and very cute on the outside.

We made an appointment with the realtor and toured the house. Some neat things: very high ceilings and doorways, double doors, lots of space, neat floorplan - lots of potential for someone who wants to spend the time and money to fix up a house with a lot of character. Some not so neat things: in bad need of a complete re-caulk and re-paint on the outside, a vandalized alley just out back and a club of some sort across the street, warped floors on the top floor. We had quite a few questions that the realtor couldn’t answer, so she’s getting back to me with the answers sometime this week.

I’m not dead-set on buying a house, but it is something I’d like to do if we can. We don’t know if it’s feasible right now, but we’re going to talk with a mortgage broker and see where we stand. I think the most positive thing to come out of the experience is that we’re talking about buying a house again.