On the home front

If you have been checking in with me on instagram (@dahlhausart) you've been seeing a lot more of my day-to-day then what I've been putting up on my blog these days.  Especially during the winter months when we don't get a lot of light during the days, it's just been easier to snap a photo with my phone and share it.  I've been totally loving the conversations and feedback that's happening over there- my blog seems much more of a one way conversation these days and that was feeling a little lonely. 

All the same, I did want to share a few things that have been going on on the home front- last week was a week of highs and lows and on the low end, our landlord informed us that our house is going to be put up for sale.  So we had a week of lots of workers in the yard, pulling out the oil tank and taking out a wack of trees and generally making me feel sad and overwhelmed about having to leave. 

 When I told some of our neighbours the news, they were begging us to try to buy the place.  As you might have heard on the news and internet, apparently Vancouver is the 2nd most unaffordable city to live in after Hong Kong.  This is one of those weird stats that makes me wonder what it is that makes it more unaffordable than NYC or Tokyo or San Fransisco or a whole wack of other major cities that I know are crazy expensive.  Apparently the lower level of income and the foreign purchase of property had an affect on the survey, so I guess it's with good reason that I'm quite concerned about how we are going to manage finding a place to rent, let alone ever be able to afford to buy.  Most of the people we know that purchased homes did so before they had kids and they bought with a sibling (so there were 3 or 4 full-time working adults with incomes). 

It's hard to think back to the 90's when I was in art school and we thought about buying a leaky condo for $180 000 that we would then have to put in another $60 000 to fix.  We should have bought what seemed to be a bad investment at the time, because it would have turned out to be a way into the housing market.  Now, with 2 boys that are growing and need space, and both of us with careers that are all about fulfilling our 'calling' in life rather then filling our bank account, buying a home won't be in our foreseeable future.  I'm ok with this, but it's hard to feel ok when someone else is making the decision that we have to move before we are ready to go.  We have really felt at home here for 7 years now with our kids playing in the yard, climbing trees and running to the neighbours to play.   I can only pray that the next place will feel the same way for us and that we will really find a place that has everything we need for a price we can afford.