Casper

On Friday Jim and I decided to go to Casper to check out the housing scene (I also thought it might help motivate Jim into doing his exercises for the PT test for the Sheriff job). We wanted to scope out what you could get for under $160,00. And let me tell you, it's looking very bleak. Just about everything we looked at was basically a total dump, or in a crappy/creepy neighborhood. There was only one house out of the ones we looked at that I would have considered moving into. It was a 1,561 sq ft. 3 bed 2 bath foreclosure (which explains why it was in our price range at $164,900) and it was in a fabulous neighborhood that was close to all the shops that I like to visit. It also had a room that would have been PERFECT for my beads! All it needed to be move in ready would have been paint and maybe new carpet. Here's the pic's that was on the info sheet (they aren't a very good representation of what it looked like though):

The back yard was huge! And it had a hot tub :).

This is the view from inside the livingroom you can see the dining room in the distance.

This was the totally sweet room that would be perfect for my beads! As you can see there are built-in shelves and a perfect place for a desk.

Here is the kitchen. Not a very good view of it in my opinion, because it was kinda cute. Just enough space for all my dishes and plenty of counter space for making yummy meals!

As you can see I'm totally smitten. If we had the dough and could move immediately we'd be living in this home. But alas...with the housing market going down the tubes like it is I'm not confident that we'll get anything out of our current house. And it looks like we are going to need every dime that we make off this place to afford a nice place in a safe neighborhood. And don't even mention renting! It's out of the question!!! Most places are going for more than $1,000 a month in Casper. *gasp* So there is no way that I'm going to rent unless I absolutely have to. If I'm paying $1,000 or more a month it will be towards something I own.

The upside of the whole trip is that we met an awesome realtor. She was VERY informative and VERY helpful. She showed us some of the good neighborhoods in town and gave us lots of information about the area and the different kinds of houses in Casper.

So, now I just need to get Jim motivated into doing the exercises that he needs to do. Any hints or tips on getting your hubs motivated would be appreciated. And please pray for us that if it's the Lord's will that we will find ourselves moving to Casper.