I'm Packing

I suspected that I may still have been sleeping. Surely this phone call came in a dream, right? Our realtor called to say we are . . .

U N D E R
C O N T R A C T!!

Then I realized that I was actually awake. And had been for a number few hours. This was the real deal.

Wow! How exciting is that? Of course, there are still a few more things to get past, but God's brought us this far. In fact, He's done some pretty amazing things in regards to this house.

If you haven't been along for the ride, let me back up just a bit, so you can grasp how totally cool this is.

Our utilities became WAY too expensive last winter. And we were freezing very cold. Since I homeschool the boys, we're at home most of the time. Freezing did not make for a very pleasant learning environment. We already kept the thermostat fairly low and tried to dress warmly, but apparently that wasn't enough. After the annoyingly large bill, we dropped the thermostat to 59-60 degrees. Only when we just couldn't stand it, or company was coming over, did we turn it up. Well, then, and for a short time in the morning so that we could actually warm up enough to get moving out of a sound sleep.

So we made the monumental decision that ought to move before the next winter rolled around. After a couple of conversations here and there, we ended up getting approved to buy a house - January 22nd to be exact.

Since that time, we've looked at house, and looked at houses, and looked at houses. We even made offers on some houses - six, to be specific. We actually looked at the house we currently have under contract 2-3 months ago. But the day we wanted to take a look, it went under contract (with someone else, obviously). We continued with our looking process. The middle of last month, this one came up again. I called our realtor and found out that the previous potential buyers found another place and backed out of the deal. So we went to look.

Other than this house not being in our first choice of area to live (it's our second. And it's just over a mile from my sister and her family), it fit everything else we wanted. The right amount of rooms, size of garage and yard, and a good, works-for-us floor plan. So we made on offer. Number seven. The number of completion, Biblically speaking. On July l6th. Well, this house is owned by a bank, having already gone through the foreclosure procedure. It's been vacant for at least a year. There's some cleaning and minor things to be done, but it definitely has some good things going on, like newer vinyl windows, newer furnace, and a/c. Ceiling fans in the three upstairs bedrooms and in the dining room. Newer pergo in the living room/dining room.

Making an offer to a bank is very different from trying to buy from a private party. First of all, they don't respond within the somewhat standard 24-hour period. More like 3-5 days, business days, that is. So factor in weekends. The week after we offered, they agreed (verbally), but wanted to add a couple of things on an addendum. We decided we could live with those things, so we signed an addendum. And waited.

Then they wanted something else changed. So we did. And then we waited. Then it was one more thing. Because we did this so many time, I'm not sure if that was the last "one more thing" or if there was one more. Regardless, we signed one last addendum last week and decided that this would be the last-ditch effort. This was just getting silly.

Yesterday I got the call from our realtor that we've been waiting and waiting to hear - "You are under contract." Amazing, but true. That's not to say we're home-free (actually, that'd be opposite of what we want to be - we want to be home-ful, or something like that). There are still a couple of hurdles to get over, but with offer #7 and almost seven months later, we've gotten further than the rest. And honestly, this house fits better than the other six.

The other cool thing? We were going to pay to have the furnace serviced, but the way it worked out, the bank paid for it. How sweet is that? God's provision is so awesome. So the furnace was serviced today and it's in great shape. The A/C is good. The water heater needs a valve or else the entire thing needs to be replaced. There's a water softener that needs to be removed (leaking terribly and the water here isn't at all hard). The house also needs a new roof (we already knew that). So if they'll take care of those things, we're good to go.

If this had been a quick and easy answer from the selling party, our closing date was originally slated for tomorrow. But that's okay. God's timing is perfect. Better than what we think might be good. So we'll trust Him to continue to put this together.

In the meantime? I'm packing.



Disclaimer: That's not our house up there. I wish that were the setting, but the house is teeny tiny.