Sunday, April 28, 2013

How Quickly Life Can Change...

{{{Last weekend I started writing a post (an update as to where we are in life now) but unfortunately never made it back to complete it. I may try to wrap it up soon, but in the meantime...less than a week later...we've had some big changes!}}}

It is just crazy to think how quickly life can change. We have been living with my in-laws for over 8 months, since we sold our house last summer. About a week and a half ago we began having strong feelings that it was really time to go. We have been actively searching for a house for a few months, and things were just not happening. The market is really tough right now; inventory is low so things are going fast. A lot of multiple offer situations and houses being sold basically the day they list. Tough. Especially when you have a budget.

One week ago today (last Sunday) we had 6 showings with our realtor. At the end of the day, we decided to place an offer on a house that, while it needed lots of updating (minimal fixing to our knowledge), was situated on nearly 5 acres of land. We talked about it for hours (with family and between ourselves), discussed its potential, and while it was a little further out than we had planned on, it was still not even half as far as we lived before. Monday morning I texted our realtor with our intentions...and a couple hours later I got the "bad news" call. The foundation was bad on the house, and every spring the basement would flood and require to be pumped. Ugh. We checked into a repair for that type of problem and the cost was way more than we could afford (roughly 20k).

We were a bit bummed about the whole situation, but considering our experience with searching for a house thus far, we were able to let it go quite quickly.

So, back to it. Have I mentioned my obsession with checking the automated listings that our realtor has set up for us? (anything that lists matching our criteria will show up on the list) ...  Monday night after letting go of the acreage property, I jumped back to it (finding nothing) and around 10pm I was ready to close down the computer, but had to check the listings ONE.MORE.TIME. I did, and a beautiful house appeared on my screen. I called my hubby over and we agreed we had to see it. I sent our realtor a message right away to see if we could set up a showing for the next morning. She set it up, and we met her there Tuesday late morning. The house was B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. It totally reminded us of the care and effort we put into our old house to make it shine when we put it on the market. We LOVED it and had to put in an offer. Our realtor had some other appointments that day, so we met back at her office that evening to write everything up. We knew it would be a multiple offer situation, so we worked up a deal that would reasonably work for us, without going too high for what we could afford. Said a prayer, sent it off, along with a little note-card, and knew that if it was meant to be, it would be.

We decided not to tell our families (or anyone) about the offer that we placed. When asked how it went (because they had seen the listing online, and knew it was nice) we said "another beauty at the top of our budget with multiple offers..." and kept it at that.

Wednesday was a challenge. There were 5 offers on it (before they stopped taking showings) and they would meet at 5pm to review offers. 6pm. Nervously waiting. 7pm. Anxiously waiting. 8pm. Sweaty palms and stomach butterflies waiting. Around 8:30pm my hubby got home from work. I gave him the shoulder shrug that I hadn't heard anything yet (his parents were around). 8:37pm my phone rings; it's our realtor. I b-line for the garage to take the call and my hubby soon followed.

Our prayers were answered...THEY PICKED OUR OFFER! We almost couldn't believe it. I don't know all the details, but I will just say that highest and best doesn't always "win", and I truly believe that He has a plan and it was meant to be. The sellers sound like they are really great people; we look forward to meeting them!

We told my hubby's parents first (since we live with them) and then called my parents (and all the grandparents, and texted all the siblings...). It was great. I said "remember that house in "such&such city" that we looked at yesterday? It had 5 offers on it. And one of them was ours. And we got it!" The look of shock on my mother-in-law's face was priceless - I wish I would have had the video camera going :-)  I don't think she believed us at first!

We have the inspection tomorrow, so as long as all goes well with that, we will be on our way! Projected closing date will be late May/early June. We are so thankful that our family will have a sturdy roof over our heads; a home that was given a lot of love in preparation for us, and a place we'll be able to call home for many years. We have certainly been blessed.

How quickly life can change.


This was the 35th house we looked at. Curious, for those that have purchased a house - how many did you look at before finding the "right" one and making a deal?  Please comment below, I would love to hear others home buying experiences!