For Sale

If I have been a little absent lately, it's because our lives have just taken a very drastic turn this week.  About a week and a half ago I went on a run in our neighborhood and saw that a home was going to be listed for sale soon.  As a little backstory, when we bought our current home we knew that it wasn't going to be a long-term forever home.  It's beautiful, the location is fabulous, and it fit many of our needs.  However, I just couldn't envision large teenagers upstairs in those bedrooms sharing a single bathroom.  I had my eye on some larger homes across the street.  We couldn't afford them at the time, and there were so many miracles that happened to get us into this home that I knew it was meant to be.  We've been in this home now for seven and a half years.  Things have getting tight for the kids and we've known for awhile that eventually we were going to need to upgrade to something a bit larger.  I've kept my eye open on the housing market just in case the perfect home popped up unexpectedly.  Jeremy and I wanted a home with a larger backyard than the one we have now.  Ideally I'd want 1/3 of an acre or so.  In order to get a lot that size in this neighborhood, there are only a handful of homes that qualify.  So why didn't we look in other neighborhoods?  Because I have absolutely loved being within walking distance of the kids' school, the pool, seven parks, the grocery store, the new bike park, the lake, and the trail system.  It was too much to give up.  So over the past three years or so I've been eyeing those few select homes just praying that one of them would go up for sale at the right time.  

As I ran past that "coming soon" sign I knew it was one of the houses that just might fit everything on our wish list.  I called the realtor directly and discovered they were going to start showing the house on Friday.  Next, I called Andrew, our friend and realtor, and asked him to get us into that house first thing.  We were the first ones through the home, and as we walked in we realized that this might be exactly what we were looking for.  There are four bedrooms upstairs, and three bathrooms.  The girls could finally get their own rooms!  The boys would also get their own bathroom which is a blessing since my girls are getting older.  There is plenty of room on the main floor to move around, not feel crowded, and maybe actually host a party.  The backyard is a perfect size for playing soccer or throwing a ball around.  We could set up a full-sized tramp, or a volleyball net, or so many other things.  It has a three-car garage which is perfect to hold all of the kids' bikes.  The basement isn't finished, which I actually prefer because we can finish it the way we like.  The home was built the same year ours was so there is some updating that needs to happen.  The most pressing issue though is that this home has cats and a dog.  I definitely did not want a home that had housed animals because of our allergies, but we are planning on new paint and new carpet throughout the entire home.  If we take care of that and give it a good deep clean, I think we'll be okay.  

Before we even left the house, we told Andrew to submit an offer for us.  Later that night we discovered that there were three other offers and we were now in a bidding war.  Jeremy and I slept on it that night trying to decide how high we wanted to go, and what was realistic.  Saturday afternoon we came up with a number and submitted it to Andrew, only to discover that the other buyers didn't want to risk a bidding war and dropped out.  There was one more potential offer but the seller liked our family and that we were from within the neighborhood.  Before we knew it, we were under contract for a home!  

The next step was selling our house.  We had a day and a half to get our home cleaned and ready to list.  Our family spent Sunday and Monday cleaning everything.  Monday afternoon the photographer came.  Tuesday night our house was on the market.  Wednesday morning we had our first showing.  Thursday we had five more showings.  Saturday we had our final three showings before receiving a full-priced offer.  

How did we go from living our lives as normal on Tuesday, then buying and selling a house in just ten days?  I will tell you that Jeremy and I have had some pretty amazing experiences these last couple of weeks.  When we bought our current home we felt like it was meant to be and Heavenly Father put things into motion so that we could buy this house.  This home purchasing experience is feeling the exact same way.  

-As we knelt in prayer when we were trying to decide what to do, I very clearly felt the impression that it was time to say goodbye to this home.  I cried.  I did not necessarily want to say goodbye.  We love this home.  We have so many memories in this house as we've made it our home.  We've worked on it to make it fit us just right, and it's hard to say good-bye to all of that.  
-Jeremy felt very strongly that we should buy the house at the asking price and not raise our bid at all.  At the time it didn't make sense because of my impression and the fact that we were in a bidding war, but now that we know they had dropped out we would have been paying extra for no reason.  
-I rarely run on that street, but had I not gone that day we wouldn't have seen the house until it was too late.  
-Andrew and his family just moved back into the ward after been gone for a couple of years, and knowing that we can trust him makes this all so much easier.  
-Jeremy had the time off to help me get the house ready.  
-We changed my Lasik surgery from this Thursday to earlier in the month which meant that I was healthy and out of bed for all of this.  
-We went through the self-reliance class last fall which helped us get all of our finances arranged so that when this opportunity came up we were in a position to take advantage of it.  Along those lines, at the first self-reliance meeting our stake president got up and promised us if we followed the program and did our very best to listen to the Lord through all of this then we would receive blessing we couldn't even imagine.  Buying a house in this neighborhood with this market definitely qualifies as that kind of blessing.  
-Our home went under contract less than a week after we listed it.  We only had two crazy days of showings that were a little rough, but now I don't have to keep the house clean 24/7 with two little boys at home all day.  
-We found a buyer for our house who is willing to lease the property back to us for a month or so while the family in our new home moves out and while we do the projects we need to before we move in.  

I may be missing something, but it truly feels like this home purchase, as unexpected as it was, is meant to be.  We are so excited for this new chapter in our lives.  The hardest part now is just waiting.  Waiting for all of the inspections to clear.  Waiting for the final moving dates to be set.  Waiting to build a dream home for our family.

The chaos of our week in pictures.  Frantic packing.  I was so overwhelmed on Saturday when this all became a reality that I was frozen.  I couldn't do anything because there was too much to do and I didn't know where to start.  Thanks to Bruce and my mom, I was able to get moving.  Just basic advice like, get boxes and move them out of the house, was enough to shake me from my frozen state.

When this sign went up, I wanted to cry.  It feels so real and so final with that sign in my front yard.

Once the house was completely clean and we told the boys they couldn't get any of their toys out, they played with the couch cushions, which wasn't that bad.  This day they were hiding from the cool air and fans.  We had a painter here doing touch-ups on the kitchen ceiling but we needed to air out the house ASAP before showings so we had a lot of cool air flowing through the house that day. 

Getting kicked out of the house unexpectedly on Saturday morning meant we went to Daylight Donuts.

Then another showing that afternoon meant lunch at Chick-fil-A.  Thankfully we only had two days like this.  It could have lasted much, much longer.