Selling Our House

 

In my last post, I quickly mentioned that we sold our house! And not only sold it, but sold it in 24 short hours. Back in April, Joshua and I started dabbling with the idea of putting our house on the market. He initially brought up the idea, and I was like "Woahhh! We just moved in literally a year ago!" And he was like, "I know, buttttt...." Last Spring, we were only a few months shy of Eden's arrival and we were renting a townhouse. We made an emotionally charged decision to buy the house we did because we had a baby on the way and the decision actually turned out to be one of the best decisions we have ever made. We bought our house on April 28, 2012, when our neighborhood was flooded with foreclosures and shortsales. We bought a foreclosure and got a great deal going the bank-owned route. God provided for us, because it was what we could afford at the time and it has been the best house for us. Over the past year, we have put in new carpet, painted the walls, installed new fixtures, put in ceiling fans and done a whole bunch more. I honestly wish that I had documented it more, because blogs are great for that sort of thing ;) We pretty much transformed our home, gradually, from an eyesore of white walls with dirty handprints all over it and gross carpet to a clean, updated, relatively new looking home. But we got to this point where we hit a crossroad: do we keep putting money into this house and make it our forever home? Or do we stop now and find our forever home? The biggest thing about our house is our location-- we are at the end of a cul-de-sac, we have no neighbors behind us, our backyard faces a lush, green pecan grove and both neighbors on both sides of us are old and quiet. It's a perfect situation. But we talked to our realtor and he gave us some good advice-- you can live in the best location, but you have to like the bones of your home itself. And that made our decision.

At the end of April, Joshua got called away for work in Texas for 7 weeks and all possible selling and moving plans came to a halt. He told me to just pray about it while he was gone and we would really weigh the pros and cons more when he got home.

And then the summer came, and the housing market got really, really crazy and competive.

So Joshua came home, we prayed about it some more, and we came to the decision that we did not want to keep sinking money into this home and that the move was the better choice for us. So we put our house on the market on Saturday, August 3rd. I had the carpets scheduled to be cleaned at 10 AM, and by 10:30 that morning I had 6 phone calls and people standing in my driveway viewing our house from the outside. I scheduled showings and I left the house open all day for realtors to show it to potential buyers. That afternoon, we had an offer, although it wasn't a good one. And that evening, we had a full price (closing costs included) offer from a couple who had never even seen it. So, at the advice of our realtor, we accepted the offer and signed the contract at 6 PM on Sunday, August 4th (so technically, it was over 24 hours, whatevs).



My first initial reaction to the weekend craziness was shock. And denial. I mean, seriously, it was always a joke that we could sell our house that fast. Joshua and I would talk about it... "Babe, can you imagine if we sold our house in a week? Can you imagine we sold it in a day? No!!!"

So here we are, a few weeks into escrow, and yesterday we were asked if we wanted to close early. Since this all happened so fast, and we technically don't have another home lined up for purchase, we decided to rent for 6 months and take it from there. We found an adorable little house, right across from one of the many neighborhood parks, and we will take up residence there for the next couple of months. Until things are "official" with our next move, I will refrain from talking about what we are doing next (not leaving Arizona or our neighborhood, though). All I know is that things are crazy and exciting over here! Also, on the moving topic, my sweet parents bought a house right around the corner! It will be their 2nd home. They just couldn't stay away from Eden, hello!

God is so good. We continue to marvel in His faithfullness! It is so incredible to watch Him write our story literally right in front of us as we go... trusting in His providence and His leading is so comforting! We are at peace knowing that this is the right decision for us right now and we are ecstatic about what is to come in the next couple of months!

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