The foolishness of wanting a certain house

The house we are in now is a typical mid 80's ranch. 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and a bonus room. It's mostly ok, but there isn't a usable yard, we're on a rather busy road, and we are tight for space. So, out we go into house hunting land again. It's a scary thing, not knowing what you're actually gonna get with a house, what problems it has and whatnot, and collecting the upfront costs of the deposit, moving truck, and transferring utilities. But we've got 2 full time kids and 2 part time kids and we don't have a YARD. So...

It's hard to search for rentals online for places other than major cities. It's even harder when you want to rent a rather large house for a low amount and have it be in a quiet, safe neighborhood with decent schools.

What do we want?
-at least 3 bedrooms with a bonus room or basement. Preferably 4 rooms with a basement. We have what I call the elephant in the room, the full-sized air hockey table we got this christmas.
-MUST be quiet.
-must have a yard good for playing in
-must have functioning a/c in every room
-must have decent schools and after school care of some sort
-can't be too far from the university. I'm putting this at about 20 minutes tops.
-We'd prefer to be close to our friends for mutual support.

The house doesn't have to be pretty or new. I'd prefer it to not be falling over or leaky. I'm really okay with it being out in the sticks.

I did find a few online believe it or not. But our house searches often lead to much hilarity due to our getting lost and the house being rather weird.

There's one posted on craigslist. It's out on the other side of the next town over. The google map directions don't seem to match the roads we took. Pavement seemed to end a road or two before the one the house is on. But the house! It's next to a farm. There's one house kind of behind it and another house down the road. It's old. Very Public Works Administration if you know what I mean. If it was just me, I'd be moving in already. It had it's own yard. It faced a large horse pasture and some woods. There's lots of windows. Lots and lots of windows in the kitchen. The floors were all wood except in the kitchen where it looked like linoleum tile. It had two stories. The stairs had a cubby underneath with two doors like a pass through. There's a wide, open porch all down the front of the house. There's two front doors, one on each end of the front of the house. There's a screen porch out back, about as big as a walk in closet. It looked like it had a formal dining room, two living room things, a bedroom, and a bathroom off the kitchen that had a claw foot tub. The place was SPOTLESS. Unfortunately, the floor in the kitchen had a bit of wave motion going on and we just aren't sure if the rooms are big enough. The fireplace was blocked off. And after it was pointed out to me, I don't remember seeing any closets. But the view, solitude, age, and airiness of the place was really danged appealing. We might still take a look inside for shits and giggles.

The other place was south of our town. South by another town or two. It felt further out than the first place, but it's hard to tell. We drove past it a couple times before we realized you couldn't see ANY of the house from the road. We did find the driveway. It had a metal gate across it. There was a goat farm to one side. There was a goat wandering the drive way. :) It happens to be managed by the property people we're with now, so we may take a look at it.

I'll just keep envisioning myself knitting on the chairs on the front porch of the first house. Looking out over the pasture and day dreaming.