[speaker002:] okay um what area do you are you in what area of the country
[speaker001:] okay uh I'm in southwest Houston
[speaker002:] oh in Houston okay I'm up in Plano near Dallas
[speaker001:] uh-huh where yeah
[speaker002:] do you live in a suburb or
[speaker001:] yeah I live in uh um well I live uh I live about five minutes from the TI plant and it's in uh a it's in the a leaf area which doesn't mean anything to you but it's in a it's in a subdivision and it's
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum yeah
[speaker001:] uh probably uh I don't know three bedroom house with uh
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] you know fenced in yard and it's it's an older house it's about twenty years old I bought it about four years ago and I've been kind of fixing it up and uh doing things to it as I can
[speaker002:] is it uh-huh uh-huh yeah yeah
[speaker001:] yeah I love it I'm just it's a lot of work though I'll tell you
[speaker002:] what fixing it up or keeping it up yeah yeah
[speaker001:] keeping it up and uh I've decided that I was going to try to do my own yard this year so I've
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] oh I've you know it takes me three days like come home one afternoon and mow and one day edge and another day weed eat and then my stupid magnolia tree is dropping leaves and the raking and the
[speaker002:] yeah yep yep oh yeah yeah
[speaker001:] and I thought wait a minute this is and now it's ninety five degrees almost here in Houston it's horrible but anyway so how how about your house
[speaker002:] oh boy yeah so you don't want well we have a really large house we have three kids and we bought a five bedroom house when we moved here and um it's getting to be too much too much work to keep it up
[speaker001:] oh my goodness uh-huh  how many kids do you have
[speaker002:] three three so we have a bedroom for everybody and then we have an extra playroom for them to pile all their toys in and an extra TV up there and the ironing board
[speaker001:] three kids and you're a working you're a working mom too
[speaker002:] well yeah I that's the other thing is I was working uh full time I just started back about a year and a half ago and um my youngest one got to be three years old and so then I went back to work and I decided after a year of being a secretary that what I really wanted to do was go back and get my master's degree
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and um so then I went to part-time work and I'm going to school part-time and uh it's getting to be too much financially too without my full time income so we're we're just decided to put last week to put our house on the market and um get a smaller house not too small though with three kids
[speaker001:] smaller house oh man
[speaker002:] so so that that was kind of a hard decision to make but I think uh I it's just been an awful lot you know financial is one thing and that's kind of concrete but also it's just there it the house is just really big and there there's a lot of kids and a lot of space and it all gets messed up
[speaker001:] I know I you know I can imagine gee
[speaker002:] so and with cleaning out to you know to sell the house we're trying to clean things out in closets and the playroom and the garage and everything and when you have this much space you don't have to be as careful about throwing stuff out you just put it in the garage or put it in the playroom or something so it's just we just have massive stuff that you know is we just accumulated too much stuff I mean not that we have a whole bunch of things it's just little junky you know old toys
[speaker001:] well it it you tend to fill up what area you have you you don't have a whole you know when I moved into this house I thought oh wow because I moved here from an apartment
[speaker002:] that's it yeah right right
[speaker001:] and apartments you can't accumulate a whole lot because you just don't have room to put it
[speaker002:] um-hum there's no place to put it yeah
[speaker001:] and now you know well you've got the garage you know so going to a smaller place yeah you're going to you'll find
[speaker002:] um-hum  yeah
[speaker001:] it's going to be great though it makes it gives you a good feeling when you've got clean out the stuff and get rid of it
[speaker002:] you know yeah you have more control control over it it seems almost like it's taking control here
[speaker001:] a lot of things in the garage that you know you never use you never want you know why do I keep them there's you know it's just filling up the garage
[speaker002:] but right yeah yeah it's just because you have to physically go out there and go through it I guess when you
[speaker001:] so you have to um-hum well I kept kept things that see my children are grown and
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] uh some of the stuff you know was from when they were growing up so what you know you hate to throw it out but they don't want it and you know
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] but I'll probably keep it keep it a while but it's it's amazing how a house
[speaker002:] yeah get yeah
[speaker001:] uh I don't know how you do it with your children and although I you know
[speaker002:] it's crazy
[speaker001:] well me I did it too but
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] but oh it's it's a tough deal
[speaker002:] I think well I don't I really have uh really relaxed standards about how well organized and cleaned it is I mean it has to be basically clean because you have to be organized enough enough to know where things are to be able to find things if it gets too messy you spend your whole life going through trying to find what you need
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so I learned that it has you have to maintain a certain standard of cleanliness but I mean organization but I I mean compared to the other mothers here on my street that don't work I mean my house is just it looks horrible compared to theirs but I mean you have to decide what you're going to do you know if you going to
[speaker001:] that's right
[speaker002:] what's the most important thing yeah so that's what slides for me
[speaker001:] that's right you know you have to decide is the house going to run your life or are you going to run your life yeah you just
[speaker002:] right exactly
[speaker001:] but it is it's it's it is a lot of a lot of work
[speaker002:] yeah and we this house was new when we bought it and it's all white walls and so we put up some wallpaper and some drapes and you know but we just never got we didn't have the money we didn't have the time to really decorate it and I was said to my husband if we had a smaller house it wouldn't take you know hundreds of dollars to decorate one room it of you see we did this one huge wall that we have and it was like three hundred dollars worth of wallpaper and I didn't even buy that expensiv e kind you know that it wouldn't even cost that much but it was it's a real long wall
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so if we had a smaller house everything would be smaller and it it wouldn't take well it took us two weekends to put all the wallpaper up you know
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and uh but I have a feeling it's going to be hard
[speaker001:] are you have you started looking for another house
[speaker002:] uh we have we have driven around in the neighborhood we don't want our children to have to change s chools we want to try and stay in the same school area so we've driven around the neighborhood and we've looked from the outside but um
[speaker001:] uh-huh oh
[speaker002:] I still trying to find time to get this house this weekend we're going to finish up the garage and we're going to do you know I have a few other things I need to do here and then after that I hope that this house will be good enough for people to come through and look at it and then I want to start going to some open houses and
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and um you know look at some but I've talked a lot with our realtor about it and she assured me we could get you know a four bedroom house in the price range that we want in that area she said you're not going to like it as much as this one I said yeah no kidding
[speaker001:] well uh well are prices holding you know you be able to get what you've got in that house you think
[speaker002:] but um yeah for this house it's just in this area of Plano it seems the the houses are moving really quickly they said my realtor said about three to six months and maybe closer to the three months because we live half a block from the elementary school
[speaker001:] oh that's a real plus um-hum
[speaker002:] so that's real nice yeah and it is five bedrooms she said you you it's really hard to find that and most places places have four and there are people that really want five so that's another plus so it might be closer to three months and you know we'll be if we're real lucky we won't lose any money you know we'll we'll be able it's mostly the closing costs that are going to
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] that you we can we'll be be uh asking for more than we bought the house for three years ago but the closing costs are going to eat out just about all of it so
[speaker001:] so maybe you can get enough to cover that
[speaker002:] yeah then we'll feel really we'll feel good about it
[speaker001:] so are you you you you're basically going to have to sell that one before you can
[speaker002:] so before we can look too much yeah
[speaker001:] or commit to something else anyway
[speaker002:] right that's what that's what our realtor wants to do I've talked to some other people who have put contingencies on their houses
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and um but our our realtor just doesn't really like to do that she doesn't even want me to go out and look and fall in love with something until you know I yeah
[speaker001:] oh really I would have thought you know at least go and start looking at least to know
[speaker002:] well I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to tell her you know when I have the time that's the hard thing I have finals right now because I'm taking two classes I have finals and papers and stuff so in um two weeks from now I should be pretty well set and uh I'm going to go out there and look I'm going to tell her I I want to know I want to have a feeling before I sign saying I'm going to sell this house I have to see what exactly it is that we're going to be moving into
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] so but I trust her pretty much in that
[speaker001:] oh yeah
[speaker002:] you know she knows what we're looking for and she knows what's out there so
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] so how about in Houston how is it down there
[speaker001:] well well I think uh you know I think uh real estate houses are uh it's it's selling much better than than it than than they did I think new homes new homes in certain areas uh you know are are are doing very well uh and I think uh
[speaker002:] is it getting better um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] when I bought this house was actually it's be in May it'll be five years and uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] this was uh a foreclosure a foreclosure foreclosure and uh so I mean it was had had been pretty bad in this area for for awhile
[speaker002:] oh yeah um-hum right
[speaker001:] and and uh I guess over the past year it sort of I got my uh the appraisal you know the thing you get for what they're base your taxes on
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker001:] and it's gone up from it went down from what I bought it for and then and now it's come back up
[speaker002:] oh come back up oh good yeah
[speaker001:] yeah well but then again I I didn't care if it went down as long as I don't want to sell it because then I have my taxes are going to be less but
[speaker002:] right that's true I didn't think about that that's right
[speaker001:] yeah but uh but you can tell by just riding around my neighborhood
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh when I bought when I like I say when I bought this house there was oh just many many homes for sale and uh now uh
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] you don't see quite as many and I and there's a lot of people like I just put a new roof on my house and repainted the outside and uh about a three or four weeks
[speaker002:] uh-huh uh-huh