Trials and Tribulations: Making a Homestead

            Hey folks! As some of you may have read recently, we have started house hunting again. While technically our lease runs up at the end of the month, we were lucky enough to be able to set it up to where we can pay on a month to month basis afterwards if needed. As much as we'd like to get out of this apartment as soon as possible, we've not had much luck finding a house so far.
            A large part of this is due to the fact that we are still trying to sell our house in Arkansas, therefore have some pretty restricting stipulations when it comes to buying another house if we do so before we sell the old one. Clear as mud, right? With the type of loan we would have to get, we would basically be restricted to "stick built houses", no manufactured homes...Which is all fine and dandy, but the vast majority of homes we find in the price range we're looking at and the area we like are manufactured houses. Oh. And did I mention we're looking for a place with at least 5 acres?
            We did find a place we really liked, but evidently the housing market is "hot" right now in the area we've been looking, so someone else already put a bid on it...and we're still waiting for our pre-approval again as far as I know. (We got pre-approved in the fall of last year as well when we were looking then.) Pretty much every house we've wanted to see since that one has gotten an offer on it before we even had the chance to look at it. So, we're taking a little break from house hunting because it is just depressing and bumming us out.
            With all of that being said, I thought I would start a little series of sorts on our journey to finding our future farm/homestead/whatever you want to call it. It's off to a rocky start, but we try to take setbacks like this as a sign that perhaps that's not the right place for us and we need to be patient and wait for the right one to come along. After all, buying a house is a big deal, especially when you plan on it being your "forever home"! :)