When we bought our last house, it dawned on us that we had inadvertently gotten into real estate – as that was our third property. It made sense, then, to buy again once we moved to Texas. However, there are a lot more options in Austin and narrowing down what/where we wanted proved to be a challenging task. So we made a list:

1. Good community

2. Good school district

3. Nearby park/pool

4. Close to downtown

5. Close to Jonathan’s work

6. Affordable – Turns out the houses closest to Jon’s work are not within our price range {by 300K’s+}.

7. Master bedroom on same level with kids’ room – Not something terribly common in homes here in Texas

8. Four bedrooms

9. Separate dining room

10. Decent size yard

It seemed that the more houses we looked at, the less we liked. Something was always off. Too much. Not enough. Needs repair. Too far away. The list went on. Then, last week, out of no where, Jon got an email from our realtor about a house. They set up a showing for the next day. Turns out, the house was in the neighborhood we wanted – but get this – down the street from two families we knew from our missional community! We looked back at our top ten list and realized that this house met every single need/want we had listed – plus some! The next day we put in an offer and the accepted it the next morning.

So…. if all goes as we are praying, come March 31st, this will be our new home:

Visit Amanda at Oh Amanda for more Top Ten Tuesday.