In my previous post about selling our dream home, I forgot to mention that we went under contract for our house but hadn’t found our next home. We knew we wanted to be downtown and had some other “wish list” items but the inventory was so low. Every time a house showed up in the area we liked our agent worked to get us a showing as soon as possible. I made the trek to downtown Greenville so many times.
One day, we went to see a house and I could tell Vince really liked it. He was ready to put in an offer but I told him no, this wasn’t our house. He was very frustrated but I knew it wasn’t our house. That afternoon, I was sitting in our room and I said out loud, “God, I know that isn’t our house.”
About one hour later a new house popped up. It looked perfect. It had the right number of bedrooms, great location, cute little yard, and didn’t need a lot of work. I’ll call it the Red Door House.
It was a For Sale by Owner, so it took a little bit to get a showing but we finally saw the Red Door House and we both fell in love. At this time, our realtor probably showed us close to 20 homes and I never wanted to make an offer, but on this one I did.
And so did 3 other families in the first 48 hours. Whomp whomp.
I mean, I understood why. This little Red Door House is awesome, but it was still scary. It’s hard to fall in love with an idea and dream about it just to have it taken away.
Here is where it gets fun. We closed on our current home July 27th, but because of some stupid financing stuff, can’t close on any house until beginning of September. I know our situation is unique, so I texted the owner and asked if we could talk.
When we met the owner of the Red Door House, it was clear how special this house was to her. Her family called it home for over 26 years and she wanted to make sure the next homeowners loved it just as much as they had. She listened to me as I told her our situation with the financing and asked her if she would consider our offer with a very delayed closing. I told her about our desire for this lifestyle change – one where Vince’s commute is less than 10 minutes, one where Mila can walk to school, one where we can ride bikes to the park and restaurants. I pled my case and she so graciously listened. She asked us to put together an offer and she would consider it. While it may not seem like it to some, meaning my husband, I considered this a huge victory.
So we did just that. We put together the best offer we could and on Thursday, June 15th we submitted it and waited. Five long days.
During those five days, I was at peace with the entire situation. I had handed it over the God and decided to really let it be in His hands. I can’t tell you how freeing that was. Vince was so stressed the whole time and texted me a few times voicing his frustrations. Through it all, I really felt fine because I believed God would make it work for us, regardless of the outcome.
Tuesday afternoon, I got a feeling the Red Door House owner was going to pick a different offer. I started looking at corporate apartments and making plans to move our little family into temporary housing. While not what ideal, I knew it would be ok.
We did get the call Tuesday night that the Red Door House owner didn’t pick us but “wanted to keep us as back up should the other offer fall through.” It sucked, but y’all, honestly I was ok. I was thankful that the owner considered us and I knew we did the best we could. Vince was pretty upset and that night I told him that you never know what may happen, that other offer may fall through. My normally optimistic husband was not-so-optimistic.
But y’all. The next morning our realtor called.
The other offer fell through and the house was ours… if we still wanted it.
Speechless. Dumbfounded. Shocked.
So on October 4th, after having to delay closing 10 more days, we got the keys to the Red Door House. There aren’t adequate words to express how grateful we are to our Realtor, Tracey Cappio, for working tirelessly to get us into this home and to our lender, Nelson Poe, who worked a financial miracle to get us financing. Sitting across from the previous owners, was intense. I don’t think they will ever truly know how thankful we are that they waited almost 4 months for us to buy this house. The fact that this couple felt like we were special enough to buy such an important home to them is a honor.
When I called the owner that fateful day in June, I really just prayed for a humble heart for myself and a receptive heart for her. And thank you Lord for both.
So what’s next? We are moving in at the end of next week after we do a few renovations. I will obviously be sharing photos soon but for now here is a cell phone shot 😉
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