So much to tell...

...And so little time!

That's how I feel, anyway.  Life has been racing by lately, and I'm not entirely sure why.  This semester I only have three classes, but just as I feared, the lighter work-load is a good excuse to slack!  I have been pretty consistantly behind on reading and unfortunately the class schedule usually conflicts with my work schedule so I haven't been able to make the virtual classes, either.

But school's not the only thing that's got be running around these days.  Most importantly, (and you must forgive me for not blogging about this sooner) we have finally made the decision to BUY a house.  Remember a while back I was bemoaning all the expenses involved with construction?  The real problem is that banks just aren't willing to loan money.  Since the real estate crash here, many banks have foreclosed on homes which have continued to lose value and so now they're pretty desperate to get rid of these properties without accruing the liability that comes with granting a new loan (for example, for contruction...).  

We've gone round and round and looked at different things and played with the idea of different scenarios; but in the end it looks like we're going to end up with the first house we fell in love with! :)  

That's right, way back at the beginning of May (2012) we were shown a house that we absolutely LOVED.  It was a little big, but the layout was such that it still felt warm and welcoming.  The whole house was centered around the patio in an L shape so that there were lots of windows looking out on the patio and therefore lots of natural light.  The property was also on a corner, which is important if you like windows because Spanish construction is typicallying wall-to-wall with the neighbors so that it's impossible to have lateral windows.  It was was beautifully tiled in the kitchen and bathrooms...but they were asking far too much for our meager budget: 200,000.  

We pretty much gave up on the idea of living there, but after seeing that house, we didn't even want to look at any others!  That's when we decided to go ahead and buy property of our own to build our own home.  When we had the plans drawn up for our own house, we basically recreated the one we'd fallen in love with in the beginning--centered around the patio, etc.  The only difference was that our house would be smaller and not on a corner lot (those are more expensive, as you can imagine).

...And then along came Life and whipped everything up into a frenzy.  We were up and down and all over the place, frantically looking for a way to go ahead with the construction of our dream house, but resigned to the reality that we'd probably end up in some property that currently belonged to the bank.  

Then one day, we got wind through the owner's cousin, that the house we had loved so much back at the beginning of summer had come down, down, down in price.  She assured us we could get it for 130!  Since then we have been wheeling and dealing with the owner and have finally agreed on 145.  It's not what we hoped for, but they did come down some and the house is really worth much more, even without the inflated market prices of 5-7 years ago.  We are thrilled, as you can imagine. :)  

But of course, it wasn't just a matter of reaching a sale price.  We've also had to negotiate interest rates with the bank, to arrange for our take-over of the home's current loan (you were wondering about that, right?)--so stressful!  And make all the arrangements for money transfers from my U.S. accounts.  It's been crazy--a lot of details to attend to, etc.  But I think we're in the home stretch (finally), and soon we'll be able to breathe easy and enjoy our already-constructed dream house! :)

Both of us are pretty anxious to get the sale finalized and be moved in!  Right now we're just waiting on the notary to give us a date to sign all the papers.  We will probably hear from him next week. Which means that for my birthday we'll be moving! :)  

I will send pictures as soon as we have the keys!

...And I promise more news soon.  Yes, there is more to tell (not house related).