Anybody Seen A Little White House with a Picket Fence?

I am so completely emotionally worn out I do not know what to do with myself.

We have been looking for a house to buy for about six weeks. During that time we decided to buy, then we decided we were moving to South Dakota (don't ask), then we were going to stay, no go, no stay. I feel like that alone has made me feel slightly unstable.

And now we are back to looking at houses.

Due to living in a university town, I am told, the prices of houses are fairly high here is Starkville compared to other cities in Mississippi. We are pre-approved at our bank for a loan and Brian has a great job. But we can't seem to find an affordable house to fit our needs. We have looked at fixer-upers and knock-your-socks-off-when-you-look-at-your-payment houses. It is really wearing me down.

The house we are currently living in we have been renting for almost three years while Brian finished school. Now we are ready to purchase our own home. Right?

There are no new houses in our price range.

There are very few four bedroom houses below $200,000. Yes, two-hundred thousand dollars. I choke to think about it. Waaaaaay out of our budget. Like, Dave-Ramsey-would-slap-us-if-he-knew outside our budget.

I just want a cute house that we can live in and have a couple more kids in, pay off in 15 years and enjoy. Fenced-in back yard, usable kitchen, normal-looking (translated: what I think is normal,) for well below $150,000. It doesn't even need to have granite and stainless steel and walk-in closets.

Is it always this way? Extremely difficult to find what you want in your price range?

I watched a couple of back-to-back episode of "Property Virgins" on HGTV to see if the couples they featured fared any better. Yes. They only had to look three houses to find the right one. We have looked at 2,000,000,000,000... I think. Plus driving around shopping the neighborhoods.

It is enough to make me want to rent until Andrew is ready for college.