Much warmer feet, like fire walking

This refers to the blog entry "Colder feet". Thanks for all your advice.
Ok, the title of this entry is exaggerated slightly. But we have had another big turnaround in our thinking of moving to a bigger house.

Tonight we did the official skritch skritch skritch of the pencils on paper to
1. List advantages and disadvantages of
A. Staying
B. Buying Upgrade or
C. Buying Stretch, and
2. Calculate monthly actual expenses for each option including utilities, taxes, insurance etc.

It seemed as though we could move into a 4-bedroom house with a yard for about $200 more in monthly payments than what we are paying now for a 3-bedroom townhouse, no yard. But then we discovered a big mistake: we weren't including our down payment in the calculations. When we subtracted our down payment from the purchase price of the home, BOTH 4 bedroom homes with a yard cost LESS PER MONTH including utilities than we are paying now. The difference is 1.5% less in interest rate and a Home Owners Association fee that we pay monthly to live here.

WE *HAVE* TO MOVE!

Now we have to decide between the two homes. Upon further investigation, we found that upgrade and stretch are really not that much different in value, and that "stretch" should be renamed "intimidating yard". We will take our list of ads and disads and prioritize them and then go through some sort of decision-making process to see where we should make an offer. Right now the biggest thing is the "feeling" of the places. This drives us scientists crazy how big of a factor something non-quantifiable can be in such a big decision!