Without holding out on you any longer… We have decided to build a house in New Braunfels, TX!! To be honest, we did not set out to build a house as we spent a very long time just looking at homes. It has been a whirlwind the past 2 months trying to figure out how to make our lives come together. Even though it happened 2 months ago, all the decisions were made in the span of 2 weeks haha. I will get to all the why’s in a moment though. To better explain the whole thought process behind the build/move, let me take you back to last year.
Many of you know that Jeremy and I have been doing long distance for the past year. Back in November 2019, Jeremy got a job offer in San Antonio and he had to move quickly. I had only bought a house 10 months prior to Jeremy getting moved and I had client work in Dallas. Since there were still a lot of unknowns, we decided to do long distance before making any big moves (this wasn’t our first time doing long distance). While we had so much fun going between San Antonio and Dallas, it was starting to become clear to us that we needed to make a decision for our future.
When Covid hit in March, we had to postpone our wedding till January and working from home went into effect for both my client and my company. Once I was working from home, I was able to travel down to San Antonio more and work from down there. We started seriously talking about how long distance wasn’t an option anymore for us. Constantly going back and forth, not being able to spend weekends together and the stress of everything was really getting to us. The last weekend of September I was down in San Antonio and we started driving around to look at homes. I can’t explain it but for me, San Antonio just didn’t feel right.
We decided to take a drive out to New Braunfels, TX, which is only 30 minutes from San Antonio, as we had heard it was a rapidly growing area. As soon as we started driving around, we both got really excited about the possibilities of living there. It’s a beautiful town with hiking, biking, floating the river, festivals, restaurants and shopping. As we started to look at homes in this area, we came across a new development with homes being built. We ended up looking at a couple model homes and one of them we both fell in love with!
We took a couple days to think over all our options and if this was going to be a good move for us. The second week of October we had come to the conclusion that we were all in and it became clear we needed to move pretty quickly. Which at the time we were no where near ready. There were 3 lot locations that we loved and by the time we had made the decision (2 days) they were all sold. There was one last bigger lot and we decided to move quickly on it.
At the time of the quick decision, I was already back in Dallas. Since we wanted to move on signing a contract that day, I couldn’t get down there quick enough to see the property. I had to trust that what Jeremy picked was going to be perfect (I am sure it will haha). Once we signed the contract to build, Jeremy also had to pick out the brick, stone and the floorpan without me there in person (no we aren’t doing full custom home). I got to FaceTime in but still I was VERY nervous about not seeing anything in person while making a HUGE decision.
No one tells you that when you start to make the decision to build that things tend to happen really fast in the beginning. All within two weeks of signing a contract to build we had to map out floor plan, pick the stone/brick for the house, design the inside and list my house for sale. I think after signing to build was when things got really hard and big decisions needed to be made. Like when do I list my house for sale, can I get approved to work in Austin (I was able to transfer to a new office), where do we live while the house is being built. We had so many unknowns and ended up trying to make countless plans which never seemed to fit right. Especially because at the time we had no idea if/when my home was going to sell.
Which now brings me to why I sold my townhome in Dallas. Once we knew we would be moving to New Braunfels, I decided it was best to just go ahead and list my house. The sellers market in Dallas is very hot right now and things are going quickly. I didn’t want to risk waiting until the new year to list my house incase the market took a turn for the worst. While I had hoped my home would sell, I didn’t realize just how quick. I listed it on a Thursday and by the following weekend it had sold. Which now lead to where on earth was I going to move too in the meantime.
After trying to make a couple options work, we both decided it would be best if I stayed in Dallas with my parents until after the wedding. Since there were more weekends I needed to be in Dallas than not between now and the wedding, we figured this was a good option. Once we come back from our Honeymoon in January, we will move into a new apartment in San Antonio until the house is built in June/July.
I applaud you if you have gotten this far in the blog post haha! I know it is a really long post but so much happened that I didn’t get to share like I normally would. I feel like anytime I share something prematurely I get jinxed and it doesn’t work out the way I thought haha. There were a lot of different things riding on each other and we thought it would be best to wait to share with everyone.
Hopefully this blog post answered some of your questions on what all is happening! But if not, feel free to leave comments/questions below:)
Thanks for sharing your insight and perspective! My fiancé and I are long distance in Southern California. We are experiencing the challenge of finding a place to call home together. This was very helpful!