The Great Move of 2008, Part Deux

Earlier this year we made the decision to move from Pflugerville to Granbury. We bought land right down the street from Grandmommy and Granddaddy. We put together a set of plans for our "dream house". We even worked with a local bank in Granbury to get a construction loan started and the papers are sitting in my office at home right now, burning a hole in my credit report, unsigned.

And then came all the work on the Pflugerville house to get it on the market. It has now been on the market for about 2 months and a grand total of 3 potential buyers have walked through it. Then just last week I read a report that stated the market in Texas is starting to go soft, even in the hotter markets in Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas. Sure, there are some hot spots, but ours isn't one of them.

So we've been stressing over the decision to start building in Granbury. Do we? Don't we? After looking at all the data and the direction of the market I think we've decided to take the conservative (read: smart) route and not start the construction in Granbury until we've sold the house in Pflugerville.

So things were up in the air. Amy has quit her teaching job in Pflugerville and still hasn't heard from Granbury ISD. At some point we have to make the decision to move the family to Granbury and get the kids in school in the hopes that the house sells. If we stay in Pflugerville then what happens when the house sells?

Quite a conundrum.

In the meantime, my company has been asking me for a few months to move to Taipei for a while to get more intimate with that side of the business and the culture. I've been saying no, mainly because of our plans to move to Granbury. I was sure our house was going to sell and we'd be living in Granbury before the Summer was up.

So about 4 weeks ago, we decided to take them up on the offer and move to Taipei for a year starting on August 1st. Since then it has been a whirlwind of planning and paperwork. I happened to be in Taipei the first week of June so I went ahead and found a four bedroom apartment that is only about a 5 minute walk to the school. I also checked out the school and I was very impressed.

The name of the school is the Taipei American School and it will be a great experience for the kids. It's a private school that mainly exists for American expatriates in Taiwan. It was originally founded by the U.S. State Department but has since gone private. It serves Pre-K through 12th Grade and has over a thousand students.

So the amended plan for the Great Move of 2008 is as follows:

• Move to Taipei
• Sell the house while in Taipei
• Start building in Granbury next Spring
• Move into the Granbury house when we return from Taipei next Summer.

It looks like we're taking the long way to get from Pflugerville to Granbury, but it will be worth it. I'll be posting more updates here in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!