Westmoreland Asays

It only took a day. Within 24 hours, our realtor had found a buyer for our house. They offered us an amount matching our asking price, so we are more than estatic. Closing is tentatively set for March 30, so we'll be moving out that time--back to the Booren's of Sherwood, but this time for most likely a lengthy stay. Although Centex appears ready to accept reservations for Nottingham Woods. In the next few weeks, Centex should be providing the pricing for the houses they intend to build, and they will begin accepting reservations on Saturday, March 11. So we'll know shortly if this option will work or not. We spent most of Saturday looking at houses in Cambridge and Foxhaven (the boys slept through much of it in the car). Some of the houses had serious flaws (no shower in the master bathroom--and only one in the whole house), while some were so old and outdated it was painful to look out--but all were overpriced and had realtors who seemed oblivous to the fact. These

Our house is now live on the market. It will be interesting to see how many hours, days, or weeks it will take to get a reasonable offer. Three other other houses in our direct neighborhood have sold since November, and they sat for 17, 9, and 2 days respectively before accepting offers. Those houses were all original, too--meaning that they still had the same appliances, flooring, countertops, windows/doors, paint, etc. as when they houses were first built in 1988. We have updated nearly everything in ours. Meg wants to set a record for how quickly it sells, while I'd just prefer to move back home again--living at the inlaws isn't ideal, you know, but we're grateful.

Well, since we signed the contracts last night, I guess it is now official: we are selling our house. The market is so silly right now that we already have two different parties interested--simply by Meg spreading the word among our neighbors. We could potentially have an offer even before we publicly list the house (but I'm not counting on it). Regardless, we are going to be homeless soon, at least until we re-roost in Capital City. Centex is building a small, 46-lot subdivision--named Nottingham Woods --near where we used to live, and which backs up and connects to one of Salem's most affluent neighborhoods, Cambridge (and the newer part of it). They build relatively cheap (but big) houses, so we're banking on their prices being low enough for us to get one of their "smaller" models , all the while reducing our debt in the process. We've yet to reserve our plot of land, but we know exactly which one it will be--and Michael is willing to camp out in fr