This Old House

Can I take a break for a minute and vent on here? Oh wait, it’s my blog! I can do whatever I want on here!!!

We are in the process of trying to buy a house – UGH! When you think of buying a home you think of taking a step in the right direction towards fulfilling the American dream. Before you engage in the process you picture it as a fun time. You think of big houses, cool colors and carpet, all those things you have always wanted in a house. You think of it as fun, exciting, and everything you have been looking forward to for years. Then reality strikes when you go see a lender. It strikes harder when you go see houses. The rose colored glasses quickly come off.

Buying a home in California has not even been an option for us up until now. Real estate prices in this part of the country have been through the roof. In fact, they still are in my opinion. The median sale price on a home in Ripon, California is still $413,500. Thanks hundreds of thousands of people buying houses they could not afford the market is being flooded with foreclosures that fall into our price range. Some of them have been absolutely disgusting: spray painted every wall, garbage in all the appliances, ripped out crown molding and baseboards, peed in the carpet, ripped out toilets… I think you get the picture. Others have not been as bad.

What has been so frustrating is the bump after bump after bump. We got certain finance numbers one day and completely different ones the next. Without knowing what you are going to get in financing you can’t even make an offer on a house! I AM GOING HOUSE CRAZY!!!!!!

OK, I feel better now that I have vented. In the mean time everyone who reads this blog needs to pray for us. If it’s the Lord’s will we will find a home soon. Noah Hackworth used to always tell me that it was imperative that a preacher buy a house as soon as possible. He served the Lord his whole life through preaching the gospel and was only able to get a home late in life. I can still see him gazing right into my eyes and adamitly stating the necessity of buying a house. It was completely out of love though; he didn’t want my family to have to go through the struggles his did – and I love him for that. So Noah, thanks so much for all this stress and heartache we are going through trying to buy a home. I owe you one pal :)

Sow the Seed,
Caleb

p.s. Speaking of houses, tomorrow I end my sermon series “This Old House: Taking Another Look at the Church that Jesus Built.” The text is 1 Tim 3:14-15 – WOW how do you do this text justice? Just preach it I guess….