Chicago '09? Probably Not...

After some heavy soul searching, we have decided to make some changes to our plans to try and move back to Chicago this year. I wish I could say we found a way to get out of this house, and we'll be home this fall, but alas, the powers that be just aren't seeing things our way.

That means we are moving on to the next plan. We have decided to focus our efforts on refinancing in the event we are still stuck with this house after our ARM resets at the end of 2010. They don't look real favorably on homes that are considered investment properties, so turning this house into a rental would not be in our best interests. As it is, we've had dismal success trying to get the dang thing rented anyways. So this week we are pulling the house off of the rental market.

Once the refi process gets rolling and we have our appraisal completed, we will be listing the house for sale. It is highly unlikely that we will get a contract this year, but the service we are investigating is good for a year. Plus, it can't hurt to try and capture any traffic that might come through as a result of the $8K government incentive plan, and that expires at the end of this year.

To make our home a little more appealing, we've decided to spend a little money and upgrade the appliances in our kitchen. For me, this is the most exciting part of our new plan! At least we'll get to enjoy some nice new appliances while we are here, and it will complete the look for our kitchen. Everything else about it is so nice, but yet we've still got the builder stock appliances. We need to do everything we can to make this place as appealing as possible. We started doing some shopping today, and I am the most excited about getting a new stove!! We are looking into getting a duel fuel stove (gas range and electric convection oven). As we were looking around I kept exclaiming, why didn't we do this sooner!?!?

So that's the current state of things here on the west coast. I'm resigned to the fact that we are going to be stuck here for at least another 6-8 months. I don't like it, but it does finally give me some more solid footing on which to make short terms plans. I can get Caiden enrolled in the next Kindermusik class, I've got our flights already booked for Christmas, we're interviewing babysitters so we can actually have a few date nights (um, yeah - last time we had a date was on Valentine's Day.), and the list goes on.

I will remain hopeful that we'll get lucky and find a buyer that makes us a reasonable offer. It feels like a long shot these days (especially when I watch stupid and depressing shows like Real Estate Intervention), but who knows. Maybe we'll get lucky.

PS - that flight sale is still going on over at Alaska Airlines. You've got until Friday to book a cheap flight! hint hint! ;)