Homeless

I'm not going to cry while writing us...unless I do!  We closed on our beautiful home on Cayias Drive this week.  It has been a very long, hard summer.  This spring I felt a bit of an urgency and that it was time for us to sell our home and move to a home that was more "teenager" friendly home as we approach and have hit that era of life.  I had a plan.  We would hustle to get our home ready, sell it before the kids got out of school, find a new home in the month of June, be all settled and enjoy the rest of the summer in our lovely new home and be ready for school to start.  It would be perfect!

 

 

So we found a great real estate agent who encouraged us to declutter, paint and carpet our home to make it more fresh and sellable.  The decluttering and painting went well...but I tell you carpeting while you still live in a home is a pain in the keester!  It forced us to declutter more (holy cow what you find under beds) move half the house to one side of the house, then the other half to the other side of the house all the while continuing to sleep wherever you possibly can.  That was a rough week, but wow!  It made the house look great and ready to go.  This was going right along with my plan.

 

We put it up on the market and immediately had buyers coming through.  It was so exciting - one the first day, ten the first week and a steady stream thereafter.  It was a pain to keep the house clean, and we often lived out of a car (this is the time we were rushing from one thing to the next, I got all the boys church clothes for Ocy's viewing, but forgot belts...Micah used rope we found in the car - it was pretty humorous!)





The showings continued to happen, but no one was buying our home.  It was quite discouraging.  We feel like we had a wonderful home in an AMAZING neighborhood and people couldn't quite see what we had. May came and went. June came and went.  I think Phil was ready to pull out and just stay in our home (it was much nicer after we cleaned it up and decluttered it!) Finally at the end of June, after getting the house ready to show about 30 times (literally), we got an offer!  Yeah!!  There would still be time to buy a home before school started and have most of my plan in place.

Well, it was once again tricky.  There were lots of smaller, ok homes in places we didn't really want to live (we were hoping to stay close in our area...we love it!) and lots of big expensive homes, but hardly any in that in between area and we had seen them all and hadn't really felt good about them.  There were even a few in our Ward for sell, but they just didn't quite feel right.  Discouragement hit again.  I was talking with a friend who mentioned an area in Bountiful that I have always loved and how wonderful it seemed.  I had seen a house go up for sell there and talking to her made me want to take a look.

So we did.  It was a very nice home that hadn't been taken very good care of. But I loved it.  The problem was that it had some water damage that hadn't been appropriately taken care of, but we thought it would be no problem to get someone to come in and take care of and that all would be great.  So we made an offer.  I was very excited when they countered us and it would be doable and we went under contract.  Somewhere along the way though, Phil and I both started to feel uneasy about things.  The money and the mold were our main concerns, but we kind of talked ourselves into it being just fine.  We had the inspection and he had more concerns about moisture in the house and quite a few other things...we honestly were both a little relieved.  Something just wasn't right...we were hanging on to hope, but the uncertainty lingered.  Last Thursday, I read Jacob 6:12 "O be wise, what can I say more?"  I felt like that was my answer.  We backed out on Friday.

In the meantime, we had moved out of our beautiful home and it still hadn't closed.  I felt so bad for the people moving in, it wasn't their fault, but I think if they had extended one more time, Phil would have packed up...wait we are already packed up...and moved back in!!  We love our neighborhood and friends.

We joke about being homeless, but really we are living with my parents while we sort things out and it has been really nice.  I have so enjoyed the time with them and the boys have gotten some great experiences.  They even went to the dump and delivered Meals on Wheels with Grandpa.  It has been lovely, but we are also both commuting to Salt Lake daily.  Phil for work.  Jacob and I for football practice.  Patience has worn thin and that is where we were last Sunday night. Feeling pretty low.  It's hard when you try to do what you feel is right and it doesn't go smoothly.

Monday afternoon I got a text from our realtor saying we were ready to close on Cayias Drive .  I rushed to get down there to the title company by 5:00 and Phil met me there.  We were both pretty somber about the whole thing.  Happy to be debt free for a while though!!

After dropping the boys off at football and karate, we met the realtor to look at a home.  This was one that the Stake Relief Society president had told me about and she had told the other realtor to let us know when it came up on the market and one that I wasn't too excited about looking at cause I was still stuck on the other home.  BUT, it was wonderful!!  It felt so great to be in that home.  It is a home that we could have teenage boys in, a spare room for in-laws and a lovely neighborhood that came out to greet us and tell us about the area.  We were scheduled to go look at another home, but I didn't want to leave.  We came back after.  We both felt really good about the house and after sleeping on it, decided to make an offer.

Now after our last offer experience, we knew exactly what we could and couldn't afford.  We had done the numbers a million different ways!  We decided on something that would work for us and made an offer.  We got an email during the day that the other agent wasn't very pleased with our offer and didn't think that they would be willing to budge on the price and on paying closing costs.  It was interesting, both Phil and I felt peace in knowing where we needed to be on the price and wouldn't be able to go much higher.  We spent the evening searching once again on the internet for homes.  At about 11:00 pm we got a text from our realtor.  They had actually looked at our offer, and countered very reasonably and we were getting the house!!  Hooray!!  We got up and were so excited.  We quickly had the inspection which was much cleaner than the previous house and things are looking good to have us in, shortly after school starts.  The reservations we had about the first home just haven't been there and we are so excited to stay in our Stake and close to everything we know and love.

SO...it hasn't really been a silent summer, despite what the blog says.  It is so interesting to see how things work out.  I met the new owners of our home this morning at church.  They are very nice people and I think will fit in nicely.  I mentioned to her that I felt there was someone who needed to be in our home and in our area.  She said our home was the first one they looked at and that they came back 3 times to go through.  They felt the same way that they need to be here and loved the home and area.  I am so happy to hear that.  I am thankful for hindsight and the ability to look and see the Lord's hand in things.  We are still a bit anxious and will be until our new home closes, but things are looking up!!! 

Thank you Cayias Drive.  You were very good to us for 8 years.  You helped us raise our boys and we have many great memories in that home.  We look forward to many more to come in our new home!! (ok, I'm crying :)

Editors note:  I couldn't quite post this until we were actually in the house...and we are!!  We made it!!!  We closed on September 8th and were in later that week.  At about a week and a half, we are so happy to be here.  It is really a lovely home and the boys love it and the same schools and stake etc. will be wonderful.  We are grateful that everything worked out and that we are able to see the Tender Mercies of our long summer!