I’ve realized that the last thing I want right now is to buy a house here in Maine and get stuck with a mortgage payment and not be able to get out of here. Adam and I talked a lot this weekend and we’ve decided to go rent a townhouse in the Raleigh/Durham/Cary area of North Carolina for a year so we can checkout that area. We’ve always been interested in that region, plus he has a co-worker in the area, so we’d know someone down there. And it’s WARM

And like Ben Hamill said — we have to start somewhere. You can’t just stare at a blank page, too afraid to draw any lines. I feel like it’s time to pull the trigger and make the decision. It’s going to be so rough for our families, but like Jill pointed out, we need to do what’s best for “our” (immediate) family. And although the kids would probably be happy just about anywhere, they are not going to be happy if Adam and I are miserable, so we need to work on making decisions about our lives that make us happy.

Good luck with selling your house Jill! Good for you for being courageous enough to make such a big change!

And Lar, thanks for your advice too. You’re right, it’s certainly harder to move around with kids, but then again it’s even more important to create a good situation BECAUSE we have the kids. I think they’ll appreciate it!

And Chris: thanks for sharing your experience. Just reading about being stuck in that situation was enough to keep me from taking the plunge and buying a house here in Maine! It really wouldn’t be wise for us to do that, already knowing that we don’t really love the area.

All of this makes me question, why exactly is there so much pressure to buy a house from friends and families? Why does anyone care?

As you know, we just put our house on the market. We bought in 2005 which sucks. Luckily our agent thinks we can ask the same amount that we bought it for 5 years ago. So, we don’t make any money but we don’t lose any either. The thought of not being able to sell and being stuck here has been making me sick for quite some time. I’m at a point where I just want out. I hate feeling tied down to this area. As soon as we sell the house, we’re packing everything up and moving to Philadelphia. Most people probably think were crazy to do that with two kids and no job. Craig graduated in December and still can’t find a job up here. It’s awful. It’s bad everywhere, but the market is better elsewhere. I keep thinking about all the new things that we will experience living somewhere else. I love Maine. Most of the time. Winter sucks. I will definatly miss it, and my friends and family. But it comes down to what I feel is the best for me and my immediate family. I say if you’re thinking of trying somewhere else out, go for it. If you hate it, it’s not the end of the world. If you do decide to buy a house, I think it should definatly be for happiness though and not for convience. At least in my experience.

Not having kids myself I would expect that does make things a bit more difficult. Moving around is exponentially more complicated, but if you can pull it off you will find it all that much more rewarding. Especially if you encourage a love of new experiences in your kids along the way. There will be a lot more responsibility to make sure that your kids get all the support etc. that they need vs. shipping them off to school and hoping for the best.

In summary, I believe that choosing not to be tied down will be harder, but ultimately your family will be better off for it. Just my two cents as a practicing nomad.

Eventually, I came to the realization that just picking anywhere to start is better than just staring at an empty page. This advice is perhaps not so easy with three kids, but if you want to move, I’d say pick a place that sounds interesting and rent an apartment or house there for six months. Plan to go somewhere else after that. Get really good at packing and unpacking. It doesn’t matter if that first place is the best choice… you’re looking to go places, not a place. So if the first one isn’t The One, then, well, good.

Since then we’ve decided that MA is not the place for us. We want to be where it’s warm, and though we have a few other requirements that is the biggest one. Florida seems to be the place that keeps coming up — it’s warm, it’s on the east coast so traveling back north to family is easier (than from the west coast), there are plenty of pharmacy jobs for my wife, and programming jobs for me (and it’s the stomping ground of the Rails Envy guys), and it’s near the ocean, and it’s probably the most liberal of the southern states, etc. etc.

However, the sad fact is that we’re stuck in a condo that has lost about 30% of it’s value since we bought it. All of the other units that have sold around us have been foreclosures. We don’t want to walk away from the house, but renting it out might not be feasible either. The phrase “your money or your life” comes to mind…

On the other hand, it’s a nice house and we’re both employed near where we live and there’s a great school nearby, so it wouldn’t kill us to stay. But it’s not warm, and we hate being cooped up for so many months.

So yeah, I hear ya…