on Housing Confusion

What are we supposed to be doing? We got word from two sources this weekend that the house two down from J & D2 is going to be on the market soon. When we visited J & D2 on Sabbath, the owners were loading moving vans. We also saw that the place two up from J & D2 is empty, and being held as an investment. That owner might be willing to sell. The two immediate next-door townhouses have both sold, and we especially mourn the place on their right, i.e. one down from them. The place on their left apparently closed very recently, and the new owners haven't moved in yet.

I just got a call from J and he reports that we can come look at the place two down from them tomorrow evening at six.

What are we supposed to be doing? Until I know more about my next job, would it be presumption to buy something, not knowing if we might be led to a project in another town or state? As far as I know, there's little IBM presence close to that area, so it seems unlikely that I could land a non-remote project as close to home as the Gaithersburg office is to this house. Would it be an act of faith to buy near our friends? "OK, God, this seems like a wonderful house in a wonderful location for music and friends. Now we rely on You to take care of that remote job."

Other wrinkles come to mind: J & D2 want to move so that they can have a fenced back-yard for their Great Dane. But they seem to indicate that if we move into their neighborhood, they would put that idea on hold for a while. Why is it that we seemed to have (but didn't really) two chances to become next-door neighbours, and now we could have two chances to become next-door neighbours once removed? Are we getting warmer? Colder?

It's interesting that both of the next-door apparent chances where constrained by our contingency on selling this house, and both of these opportunities seem less rushed, more able, perhaps, to accept us with that contingency. What does it mean?