Why are we buying a home?

So I think Joseph and I's hunt for our first home is over!

We went to Disney to celebrate the seller accepting our offer. (By the way, if you live in Florida, getting an annual pass is the best. We truly took advantage of it and got so much out of it!)

Anyways! Back to our house and the reasons we have decided to buy instead of rent.

We are paying for someone else's mortgage

Yes...Sadly that is the case in most renting situations. Jojo and I would rather be paying towards our own home than someone else's property...or profit. Although it is much more responsibility and possibly more money in the long run, at least we'll have our property.

We have no control over our surroundings

We live in a condominium where we have neighbors on both sides of us, in front of us, and above us. They are literally all around. We can not handle it. We need our space and we need a yard for our puppers. On top of all that, if we make any changes to the inside of our condo we could be penalized! Even a simple thing like painting...even though if we moved out right now our land lord would immediately paint and put in new carpet.

We are feeling very trapped inside this condo. We have a very small screened in back porch with a door. So a few months ago when we moved it, we thought it was a great idea to put a little walk way down so we wouldn't get our feet dirty and it would just over make our porch looks so much better.

Joseph, being the wonderful handy man he is, did a fantastic job with the walk way. He even put in a few flowers and lights.

As he was putting the rocks into place one afternoon, the grounds keeper walked by and commented how great it looked...so we thought we were in the clear! Yay! We can enjoy having a beautiful back entrance to our condo!....NOPE.

The next day we got a (very passive-aggressive) letter saying we were not aloud to change the "common ground".

I'm sorry but I do not consider the walk way from our back door to the sidewalk a common area for others. If I saw someone hanging out right behind my condo, I'd call 911.

There are MANY other details to this whole ordeal but I won't bore you. Although the association manager trying to tell me that our back door isn't meant to be used as an entrance or exit was pretty entertaining!

I am very pale

Yes! This is a good reason. Before Jojo and I moved into a condo we were outside everyday! Gardening, hiking, kayaking, going on bike rides, barbecuing, and so much more. But now I look like a ghost. I have lost all my muscles and Joseph is struggling to lose the weight he's gained (which is not much!). We need a home with a big back yard to get back to all the things we loved so much in Pensacola, FL.