New house

After a long wait, I finally have a house of my own to live in, and not be renting.

We had always planned on buying a house as soon as we could, and knowing Kaleb was on the way had an interesting effect of focusing, for saving for a deposit and actually looking for somewhere.

Our first decision was roughly where. While I liked the 15 min walk to work, we had decided to move to somewhere that was not Luton. As we would both liked our current jobs and neither of us could drive, we had to find somewhere that we could both get to work via public transport (as neither of us could drive).

Harpenden was ruled out pretty quickly (very expensive), St Albans was ruled out just after (still expensive). I had commuted from Watford to work before and it wasn't overly enjoyable, so we would have to be looking north of Luton instead (which I wasn't too bothered about as prices seem to go down the further away from London you go).

Someone had told Liz that Harlignton was nice (one stop after Leagrave-part of Luton), so we had a wander round one day. Seemed a little pricey, and of the 6 shops there, seemingly a nail salon, hairdressers and gun shop were more important than, say, a butcher. The convenience stores didn't stock nappies; Liz noted the availability of which might come in handy when Kaleb was born.

As we still had some time left in the day, we went to the next stop north to Flitwick. A short wander around near the train station and we found it to our liking. Large supermarket next to the station (so access to anything we might need), and the house prices were around what we might be able to afford.

After our trip to Wales in march, we started looking at some places online. Picking out a few we liked, we arranged some viewing. We looked at 3 in total, two being unsuitable for our needs, but one being just what we wanted. Close to the train station, the supermarket and some schools, with a garden. Three bedrooms was one more than we immediately need (and thought we could afford), but it means its urgent for us to need to move again in the future as we have the space to expand.

We put an offer in, and was told later that evening it was accepted. We had hoped that, being first time buyers buying a house with no chain it would be quick (6 weeks they said...) So we could move in before Kaleb was born, but it took a long time so we only moved in a couple of weeks ago.

I'm already liking it more than Luton, its a lot quieter, even near the train lines they're not too loud (nothing compared to planes taking off and landing) and everyone seems friendly. Still in the process of moving everything in, and I suspect we'll have some boxes that need unpacking lying around for a while yet.