On Friday of last week, January 30th, Grant and I bought our first house. Grant and I have been renting apartments and condos for the last six and a half years, and we both feel very ready to be in a home of our own. Since getting married, it took us a while to pay off our only debt – our student loans, save up 20% to put down on our house, and to find an actual house we wanted. We understand that there are pros and cons to renting versus buying. So to say buying is a need, is untrue. However, we see it as a lifestyle choice and are very, very excited about it. We searched for a home in a very specific area for the last 6-7 months, and are so glad that we found something we wanted. The biggest things we wanted on our list were for the house to be in our price range, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a space we can use for an office, a two car garage, a two car driveway, a ranch style(all on one level) house, and a layout that we can live with now and update later to be even more of what we are wanting. Most of the homes in the area we were looking to buy are older homes, and so the layouts weren’t always exactly what we were wanting. The biggest compromise we made is that this house doesn’t have gas, but we did find out that we can pay a fee, and the city will run the line to the house from the street, and we just have to pay a contractor to hook it up to whatever appliances we want to be gas. We would love to eventually have our heat, cooktop/stove, and water heater be gas run,but we know this will be WAY farther down the line,but at least we have the option so that is wonderful.