Sally and George would like to buy a new home because their two children are growing older.
Unfortunately, it has become difficult to buy a new home because the cost of housing has risen faster than people's incomes.
In order to be able to buy a new home, they have been saving money for years.
If they want to buy a single-family house, they would have to live far from the city.
This would mean a long commute to their jobs for both of them.
They looked at apartments but these were either too small or in neighborhoods they didn't like.
They realize that even though they both work hard and don't spend money unwisely, they still can't afford the home that they want.
They thought, at one point, of renting a home, but really felt they wanted to own their own home.
Finally, they decided to move to a smaller town.
They felt they could live a simpler life there and enjoy a better family life.
Now let's hear the same story told by George.
We had wanted to buy a new home because our two children had grown older.
Unfortunately, it had become difficult to buy a new home because the cost of housing had risen faster than our incomes.
In order to be able to buy a new home, we had been saving money for years.
If we had wanted to buy a single-family house, we would have had to live far from the city.
This would have meant a long commute to our jobs for both of us.
We had looked at apartments but these were either too small or in neighborhoods we didn't like.
We realized that even though we both worked hard and didn't spend money unwisely, we still couldn't afford the home that we wanted.
We had thought, at one point, of renting a home, but really felt we preferred to own our own home.
Finally we decided to move to a smaller town.
We felt we could live a simpler life there and enjoy a better family life.
Now here are some questions, you can try to answer or simply wait to hear the answer.
One: Sally and George want to buy a new home because their two children are getting older.
Why do Sally and George want to buy a new home?
They want to buy a new home because their children are getting older.
Two: They have been saving money for many years.
How long have Sally and George been saving money?
They have been saving money for many years.
Three: If they want to buy a single-family house, they would have to live far from the city.
What would happen if they were to buy a single-family house?
They would have to live far from the city.
Four: They looked at apartments but these were either too small or in neighborhoods they didn't like.
Why don't they like the apartments they looked at?
They don't like the apartments they looked at because they were either too small or in neighborhoods they didn't like
Five: We had wanted to buy a new home because our two children had grown older.
What had we wanted to do?
You had wanted to buy a new home because your two children had grown older.
Six: We had thought, at one point, of renting a home.
What had we thought about at one point?
You had thought, at one point, about renting a home.
Seven: We really felt we preferred to own our own home.
What did we feel we preferred to own?
You felt you preferred to own your own home.
Eight: Finally we decided to move to a smaller town.
What did we finally decide?
You finally decided to move to a smaller town.
