Under Contract

The short version is: We put the sign in the yard Tuesday afternoon around 3:00. That night and Wednesday, my phone rang off the hook with agents wanting to show the house. By Thursday morning, we had an offer, and ended up signing it -- but not without a lot of finagling all day Thursday.

My stomach was in knots all day. I didn't eat. I don't like talking about money and grown-up stuff (just ask my Dad), let alone all day long. And it was all day, dithering, counter-offering, wondering if Shawn agreed with me on things, texting, calling, plugging numbers into a homemade Excel file I had thrown together to see the ACTUAL costs and gains. (More costs.) So we countered, but knew another offer was coming in, so we sat on it until the last possible moment. The second offer looked better, but was a little more risky because it was based on appraisal. The first buyers then offered us asking price and... it hadn't even been 25 hours but we were more than ready to put the whole thing to bed. And it was an acceptable offer.

We're extremely glad that today we didn't have to leave the house spotless. Messy is much easier.

Closing is set for May 21st so we are heavy into house-hunting today. If you're a pray-er, I would appreciate a thought for good fortune. I am trying real hard to Trust. So far we haven't seen the perfect house. I don't know if there IS a perfect house. I saw a great one yesterday but its issues include:

• wood siding that needs replacing soon
• some house settling that is concerning
• upstairs carpets that need replacing (cats, gross) before move-in
• price is on the high end of our range (but we'd offer less due to all these issues)
• kids' bedrooms on the smaller side

But the positives include:

• big kitchen with updated counters/appliances
• lovely yard with fewer trees than we currently have
• house feels spacious and there are extra rooms, including a finished basement that could easily be both man-cave AND playroom
• it's in a neighborhood we really like

So that's going to be hard. I'm crossing my fingers that this week (first day of spring is Thursday) will see a lot of new inventory and we'll get an alert, go see it, KNOW deep down that this is it, and be able to make an offer.


I've been doing a lot of hippy-dippy visualization to make it so. And straight-up Christian prayers for help and wisdom, too. :)