Pausing our house hunt — not the dream

Why we're renting for one more year.

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

Earlier this month, I pulled our landlord, Andre, aside.

Reluctantly, I told him I was interested in renewing our lease for another year.

“I can’t find a house,” I admitted, feeling the weight of those words more than I expected.

It wasn’t the update I had hoped to give. After years of planning, budgeting, searching and dreaming, I thought we’d be somewhere else by now. Not necessarily in a different place, but closer — closer to holding the keys to a home of our own.

But the search has been tougher than we expected, and for now, our house hunt is on hold.

Andre confirmed the terms of our new lease via text on May 16.

“Hello Darnell. We can renew the lease. It would be a minor $90 rent increase come June 1. Thank you.”

It was exactly what I expected — reasonable, even — and, still, I couldn’t shake my disappointment.

Another year. Another increase. Another 12 months of paying toward someone else’s equity instead of our own.

I’m still grappling with it. I still haven’t responded to the text. I don’t want to agree.

Because agreeing means surrendering to the reality I’ve been resisting — that despite all our effort, all our planning and optimism, we’ve landed in a painful pause. One that requires more patience than we ever expected to give.

Our mortgage qualification expires on June 25, and we haven’t come close to finding a home that suits our needs.

Once that deadline passes, we’ll have to restart the entire qualification process over again. It’s exhausting to think about. The paperwork. The scrutiny on my finances. The waiting. The uncertainty. The stress.

More than that, this delay is disheartening.

We were on the cusp of something new. Now, we’re stuck in neutral again, watching the window to homeownership close for the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, homes within our budget have just felt out of reach — prices soaring to nearly twice their estimated value from just a few years ago, leaving hidden gems impossible to find.

A snapshot of how the value of one home on our list has skyrocketed.

Most of the properties we’ve seen need significant renovations even at their inflated prices. And nearly all in areas that we wouldn’t feel good about raising our two girls.

The math doesn’t make sense, and neither does the compromise.

We refuse to rush into a decision that could trap us in a poor investment or a home that doesn’t truly fit our lives.

We’d rather hold steady now than regret a rash decision for years to come.

That doesn’t ease the sting of 12 more months of rent.

Twelve more months of watching money disappear into someone else’s mortgage. Twelve more months of waiting, hoping and wondering when it’ll finally be our turn.

It’s a $15,000 decision — and that’s just surface-level math.

That’s roughly what we’ll pay in rent over the next 12 months, once I work up the courage to respond to Andre’s text.

It’ll push our total well past $100,000 over the past eight years of renting. Six figures toward someone else’s future, while we’re still chasing our own.

But I also know this: pausing isn’t quitting. And waiting doesn’t mean we’ve failed. It means we’re choosing to keep going. Carefully, patiently and with purpose.

Our wealth-building plans have hit a delay, not a dead-end.

We’re not walking away. Just recalibrating. Because this dream? It still matters.

We’re still in it.

This extra time, while not what we planned, gives us room to breathe. To keep saving. To stay selective. To learn even more about what we truly want and what we’re not willing to compromise.

It’s a chance to strengthen our foundation so that when the right home comes along, we’re not just ready, we’re confident.

We’re not falling behind.

We’re being smart and building toward something better.