Home Tour / Moving News

The last few weeks have been so crazy I can barely catch my breath! But here it is, big news: we're moving!

Okay, we're not just moving, we're house-sharing. It's a take on communal living, but only a slight one, because the person we're house-sharing with is my dad. And no, we're not "moving in" with my dad - instead, our family & my dad have gone out together, chosen a home to rent, and are splitting the cost.

Why are we moving? A few reasons:

1. The basement is mouldy and it's making our daughter sick pretty often. I'm talking, constant water on the floor, yellow fungus on the walls, smell through all the vents. We've dealt with it until now but 'nuff is 'nuff.
2. The layout isn't practical with a toddler: the home is about 100 years old (if not older), and most components of our living space were sort of tacked-on to the original design. The kitchen is separate from the office  is separate from the playroom is and I can't see The Caterpillar from one room when I'm in another. This is problematic because I think I'm in the kitchen or the office a good chunk of the day, and she's in the playroom a good chunk of the day. In terms of square footage, our place is gigantic, but in terms of usable space, a little less so.
3. Renting or owning a house is the next logical step for our family. Renting on our own would cost around $300-400 more a month than house-sharing when we factor in the cost of utilities, cable/internet, and rent itself. (And that's for a smaller house than the one we'll be moving into!)

In some ways, house-sharing is a big deal: sharing a home means making some sacrifices in terms of personal space, personal space, and more personal space. Your routine gets interrupted because suddenly you need to share it - not only with another member of your family, but basically another family altogether. Because John and I are married, we are one "family" and my dad is a "family" unto himself. And our separate families have their separate routines which will now need to be accommodating of one another. And also, we need to pray for grace.

However, some people are more extreme and committed in getting out of debt through house-sharing, and that's amazing! This past weekend, we heard of a family who is sharing six people in one bedroom (4 kids, 2 parents) of a two bedroom house - and another family is taking the second bedroom! We hope to make many small changes now so that we can secure a mortgage before our family grows, and large changes like that won't be necessary for us.

So. Why are we house-sharing? Well, we're self employed. And when you're self employed, getting a mortgage is slightly tougher than when you have a "steady job". (Although I'm out to lunch on the logic here, because "steady jobs" become unsteady all the time, but hey.) Being self employed requires a minimum of a 10% downpayment, and for a modest single-family home that's about $20 000, plus fees. However, being self employed, the CMHC (Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation), tacks on roughly $10 000 in additional fees to insure your home, because you look risky, because you're self employed.  But: cash is king. And when you come to a mortgage broker or a bank with a larger downpayment - even more than the minimum - CMHC fees tend to decrease, and getting qualified becomes a little more possible.

Right now we're on the journey of getting out of debt, so this is a huge step towards getting totally out of debt (including student debt), securing a sizeable downpayment, and getting ahold of our monthly budget (I swear sometimes we overspend and I don't even realize what happened until it's too late.)

We have done house-sharing before with a friend, and in our opinion it was a big success: we saved a lot on rent, which meant that we could spend our money elsewhere. At the time, we needed the extra savings to purchase some large investments for our business (camera, computer, etc.) and we're so glad we did it.

The amazing thing, though, is that our next place has been such a blessing on so many counts: it's far larger than our current place, and our monthly costs will be only about $100 more than our current place, let alone the cost in comparison with renting a smaller house on our own. It's brand new, never been lived in, in a subdivision, which to me screams "Community!!". On the down side, it's about an hour away from where we are now, which means we'll be seeing a little less of Nana than her tri-weekly visits, and my great group of friends will be far away.

But, this "sacrifice" means we can take some steps towards the new goals. I put sacrifice in quotations because seriously people, this next place is awesome.

And in the meantime, to celebrate our move & our past home, let's take a look at the home tour.

You'll notice that I didn't tidy up for you.