FINDING HOME

We had made the big decision to sell our home in Colorado and once the house hit the market, we decided to hit the road. At the last minute, we decided to take an 11-day road trip to explore parts of the country we had never visited before. All in an effort to avoid the open house and initial showings but also in an effort to begin the process of perhaps finding home, our next home. Since COVID was still going strong, we decided to rent a travel trailer for the trip which also allowed us to take our two dogs along for the ride. Here was our plan: leave on day one of the house showings and head to the Midwest. But why the Midwest you may ask…

A New Road

As we were working on the final home renovations, we started to think about our next home. The choice was ours since Warren owns his own business and works remotely for his customers. Initially, we had planned to stay in Colorado but with home prices climbing and a commitment to lower the amount of our next mortgage, Colorado Springs looked to be our best option.

During the several months that we were preparing our house for market, housing prices began to climb. Good for selling our house but bad for buying the next one. We started to feel as though we would be paying too much for a lot less house if we purchased in The Springs (Colorado speak for Colorado Springs). That led us to the discussion about moving out-of-state.

A friend of ours had recently moved to Tennessee and once we discovered how much cheaper housing was there, we knew that we had to at least consider buying in another state. Ten years ago, we made the same big decision when we left our native state of California. We knew we could handle the logistics of a big move but we were still open to finding something that would fulfill our goals in Colorado.

There’s Just Something About a Lake

When we began to contemplate other states, I remember asking Warren “What about moving to a lake somewhere?” And he said “Really?” with big giant excited eyes. Warren had grown up with summers on the lake. Lake Mojave on the Colorado River specifically. When we got together, Warren introduced me and my kids to lake life. We spent every summer weekend we could on the water. It was something we missed terribly after moving to Colorado. But we had the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, so sucky lakes was a fair trade at that point! So when I threw out the idea of moving to a lake, Warren was all over it.

We began to scour the country for lake regions and the housing prices in those areas. We narrowed it down a bit by deciding that we didn’t want to go any further north than Colorado. North meant even colder weather and shorter summers and we wanted as many months on the water as we could get!

By the time our trip came around, we had saved 30 to 40 home listings online in about 7 different lake areas. Those areas would take us to Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky. I had planned a round-trip route that would take us through each of those regions over our 11 day trip. Each time we would get to an area, we planned to explore it by driving by specific houses we had seen online. We weren’t thinking about actually buying any of those houses because we had no idea how soon our house would sell. But we knew that driving by specific houses would give us a good feel for each area and individual neighborhoods.

First Stop: Missouri

Southwest Missouri and Table Rock Lake was our first destination. We left in the middle of the night on day one of our house showings and planned to drive the 12+ hours straight through to Missouri. Our first reservation was in a little RV park practically on the lake. Oh and I should mention that before we even got to that first stop, we were under contract on our house! Reality hit that we may actually drive by a house on this trip that could end up being ours. There wasn’t any pressure to find a place because we had planned to rent an apartment in Colorado until we found our next home regardless. But things got real, real fast!

Each time we got to a new area on our trip, we’d spend a couple of days scoping out the various houses that had caught our eye and then we’d head to the next location. After Missouri we had planned to go to Kentucky. But after the drive to Missouri, we knew Kentucky was going to be too far from Colorado and family should we decide to make the move. From Missouri, we continued to Arkansas and four more lakes.

Last Stop: Missouri

By the time we made the rounds through Arkansas, we felt pretty strongly that Table Rock Lake could be a great fit for us if we decided to leave Colorado. Oklahoma was then off the list and we circled back to Missouri and what felt like “our favorite lake”.

The Ozark Mountains surprised us. I don’t know what we were expecting, but it was something different. We couldn’t get over how beautiful it was; there were so many trees. Granted the “mountains” were only hills (hello, we lived in Colorado and knew what mountains were)! One neighborhood in particular, the second one we drove through on our first day of scouting, felt exactly like the type of neighborhood we wanted to eventually find. With just 3 streets, right on the lake, and lots of people out and about, it felt super special. People in their yards, people walking the streets, neighbors in driveways catching up with one another, and golf carts and wheelers zipping all around. Everyone took the time to look us in the eye, smile, and wave as we drove through.

Let’s Drive Through One More Time

It’s a bit embarrassing, but we drove through that neighborhood more times than I am going to admit. And the funny thing is, we didn’t even really like the one house that was for sale in that neighborhood. We barely noticed it; we were simply enamored by the neighborhood. The house probably wouldn’t still be for sale when we were ready to purchase anyhow. The price of that one house though would make an all-cash purchase possible and we realized we could be living 100% debt-free much sooner than we had ever imagined. And living on a lake at that!

We hadn’t yet made a final decision on leaving Colorado because it was a pretty heavy decision. Both our kids and grandkids were there and leaving meant leaving them, which was a really hard thing to get our heads around. While we were really excited to have our house under contract, the reality of such a heavy decision as leaving Colorado began to weigh on us but that lake sure was calling our names. Definitely something we would need to pray over!

By the time we were on our way back to Colorado, we had eliminated every single house and area on our list except that one house in the one “perfect” neighborhood we fell in love with. Yeah, go figure! You are probably already putting two and two together and know where this is going. But sit tight, we’ll get there in the next post!

Back soon,
{Shelley}