Our house saga....

OK
I know God's trying to teach me something about patience. Although it's weird, because I've always thought of myself as a pretty patient person. I mean, if DH were to describe me, and other people who know me well, they would say that I'm patient. I was a special education teacher, for pete's sake. You know?

Our home was a little on the small side even before Little Man came into our family. We purged a lot when he came, and we've been able to make it work, although it has been tight. Swings, toys... they all take space. We don't really have room for visitors, and since both sets of parents live 600 miles away, when they come, they come for a week at a time. It's not just bedroom space either. Our living room is tiny, our kitchen is tiny, and we have no storage. And everything is really close together. I don't want to be a pack rat, but every family has to store some things. (Christmas decorations, J's hunting paraphenelia... things for babies that I don't want to re-buy once L comes home) We can't host the home group we lead /teach at our home, even if our normal place cancels at the last minute. I really don't want a bigger home to keep up with the Jones family. It is a practical need. I want to have room for the kids to run and play on the inside when the weather's crappy. I want to be able to have our parents over. (especially the grumpy FIL who needs a little space away from the activity of an active toddler... I can't imagine adding one more to the mix while he's here) We have relatives from GA who want to come visit, (sometimes to visit DC) and since they've never been here, they think it's not a big deal to come with their family of 5 plus a few more grandparents... I'm rambling, but you get the point. I guess I'm defending my thought process of wanting a bigger house. Having spent time in Africa, I do realize that our humble home is an absolute blessing. And I realize it's not humble by most of the world's standards. I have 2 working bathrooms, I have heating and air conditioning, I have a working modern kitchen. We are blessed. And I am thankful. But here's the saga....


Our house has been on the market for 10 months. Even in a slow market, 10 months is a long time. We have had showings. Even in the slowest months of Dec-Feb, we rarely went 2 weeks without showings. We have had several people seriously like it, especially in the last few weeks. Last week, we had a couple come who LOVED it. JH(our realtor) showed it to them, and said she would be very surprised if they didn't make an offer. They were expecting a baby boy, his parents live 2 minutes from here.... they had all the "buyer talk" during the showing. They were renting, so no contingencies... Perfect buyers. Except they called JH a few days later and said they decided to wait a year to buy. I'm not sure why because honestly, the market is so slow that this is a perfect time to get a great deal. Maybe they need to save more money. I don't know. But they didn't buy.

Then a lady came on Thursday. She came back on Saturday morning with her husband. That night, JH called to tell us that the agent called her and was asking tons of questions and that they were going to write an offer. She said it was a good offer (close to or at asking price) and they wanted to close in 30 or 45 days. Her words were "they LOVED the house, would be devastated to possibly lose it, etc etc." She kept asking if we had any other written offers right now, they didn't want to take a chance on losing it. They wanted to "sleep on it" but expected to fax the offer within the next few days. So this morning, I woke up with the anticipation that today or tomorrow would be the day, FINALLY, that we could start moving forward with our own plans. Even talked to JH this morning (because we had yet another showing this morning) and she still sounded optimistic. I got home after driving around to waste time for the showing today (totally different potential buyers), and had an email. It said they "decided not to move forward" with buying the property. WHAT?????? How can you flip-flop that hard in 36 hours? They already had done their lender pre-approval thing, so it wasn't an issue of money/lending.

Now, this week we've had 5 showings in 7 days. Which is awesome. JH says that when a house does not sell, it is usually an issue of not getting enough viewings/showings or the price. It all boils down to one or both of those issues. We obviously have had plenty of showings. We have, therefore, lowered our price. But we've lowered it 35 thousand dollars. In considering the value of our house and the price range it's in, 35K is a lot!! We're not talking about a 500K house that has been lowered 35K..... our house is not that expensive to begin with. We have compromised a lot in that area. Truthfully, it's going to be a pinch for us to pay off all our bills, put money aside for L's adoption, and still buy a house with more room in an area where the average home is probably over half a million. And every agent that comes through says that price isn't the reason it hasn't sold, they think it's priced right. People think it's incredibly charming. Agents say it shows well. The most common reason people don't buy it is because it's too small. Yep, the reason we're selling. Nothing we can do about it. If we could make the house bigger, we might be staying here. We can't add on because of where the septic field is, and the easement for the road around us.

I'm just so beyond frustrated. We made the decision to sell last Valentine's Day. So it's been over a year since we made the decision and started thinking and dreaming about our next home. I feel stuck. It's just the making a decision to move forward with something, and perusing the listings over the last 10 months, looking at possibilities for our family, and being able to do nothing until our house sells. We've seen several things we liked sell while we were waiting. I don't hate our current home. It's home. It's just being stuck in limbo. Ready to move on..... you know?

And secretly, I have been praying the last few weeks. I had heard about the power of praying specifically. So on Valentine's Day came, a year after making the decision to sell before we added another little one to our family, I prayed we would have a contract by March 5. Silly, childish, maybe, I don't know. Today is March 5. After this weekend's hopeful possibility, I was smiling at God's faithfullness, and His goodness in answering me.... just in time. Now, I still praise Him. He is still good. He is still faithful. But I am disappointed. I am sad. i am frustrated. Again.

I also would be remiss not to mention a house that is in the target location we'd like to stay in that would seriously be our dream house. It is bigger than we hoped for in our price range. It has a basement. It has 5 acres. It has a mudroom and laundry room that is incredible. It has seriously challenged bathrooms and kitchen, so that needs to be redone, and lots of other maintenance issues that make it almost in our price range. If this house were fixed up it would be way out of our price range, but because it needs some work, it is just slightly out of our price range. It's a bank repossession. I don't know that we'd get it, and they'd sell it at our price but it's hopeful. We're reasonably handy, my dad is a pro, we could make it awesome. I was awake last night dreaming of the possibilites. When the contract possibility fell through, I admit this house is part of the reason I'm so disappointed.

Between this and our long adoption wait, I know He's trying to teach me patience.

I am also aware that I'm spending too much time thinking about it. Being at home sometimes gives me too much time to think about it. And the Chinese adoption. Hence, my need to blog some of this out.

Oh, and one more disclaimer: About JH, our realtor-- Its seems logical to point the finger in her direction. But I do believe she's done the best she can in this market. She's done some creative things, she has had numerous open houses. She maybe could have spent a little more money on advertising, in my opinion, but she has done some of that too. And with the amount of showings we've had, I don't know if it would have helped anyway. She's frustrated too, and wants it sell so badly. She's a friend, along with our agent, and I know she's be just as thrilled as us if would sell.

Please, God, bring the right buyer to our home. And help me to be more trusting of You in this process.