Before we left for our trip, we put our home up on the market. I went back and forth with renting it out for a year or selling it. However, I was worried about renting: having to deal with renters, any issues that would come up, and maintenance while we were so far away. We finally decided to sell.
Whoops! Hindsight and all that. The housing market had just started the up-swing when we placed ours for sale. However, while we were on the road, the market went nuts! About 2 months before we got back, we started looking at places to live. We ruled out buying another house right away, as everything was priced extremely high. We looked at renting, but the prices were higher there as well, plus we would have to deal with the yard work, etc. We found a few apartment/townhomes and we put our name on some waiting lists. We did have some limiting factors that narrowed down our options: we had a dog, we wanted 3 bedrooms (the kids behave better in separate rooms), and we wanted it within a reasonable distance from school and work.
One of the townhomes finally had an opening a couple of weeks after we returned home. We parked the RV at a campground, and mostly stayed at my in-laws for the two weeks until the apartment was ready to move in to.
It’s been nice so far. The house is about 1600 square feet, which is downright huge compared to the travel trailer. The boys each have their own bedroom and I don’t have to share a bathroom with them anymore! I have a full sized oven and I’ve already made a few dinner favorites and cookies. We even have our own washer and dryer.
We are still sorting out the storage locker and trying to figure out what we really need. We also had to quickly find another car (another market that went crazy while we were gone) for Ben to drive to work when needed. School popped up rather quickly (just about a month of summer left from the time we got back to when school started), so getting ready has kept us busy as well.
We’re starting to feel settled in and enjoying the room to spread out.