So I've continued to look as I realized that the house up on the hill was more work and stress than I wanted to deal with and I have the lease on the house that I am in until January. But over the last 3 weeks, I feel like I'm really getting a sense of what is available in my price range. Everything we've looked at besides the house that we are in on the busy street, has required a ton of work. Even if the locations were good, we wouldn't be able to move in until we did a bunch of remodeling or building a separate space for my BFs business. I was getting a bit depressed about it all and I really want a place where I can do what I want with the property without having to ask for permission.

Thursday morning I was getting ready to re-open a conversation with our landlord about buying the place we are in. Just before I did that I went on the rmls listing and saw a new listing that looked promising. I texted my realtor friend, turned out the house was new on the market and that there was an open house that day at lunch time, so we all went up to see it. I think we may have found our house. We're submitting an offer today.

It's farther out than I had wanted to be for commuting but it's nestled away on a dead end road in a lovely canyon with 2.3 acres, the house is cute, very liveable and move in ready! We'd end up doing some work later to expand the bedrooms a bit but overall, it's ideal. And, there is an amazing network of forest service roads out the back door practically. BF and I have been embracing gravel riding lately, looks like we may be doing more of that soon.

ETA: Thanks to all of you that responded to this thread and helped me find some clarity.