Let the hunt begin!

7 years ago Adam and I moved into our starter home. We knew it was small. We knew it was in the county. We knew that we were ONLY going to be in the house for 2-3 years, so it did not matter. I should have known that life would happen and the 2-3 years would not. Now do not get me wrong I am not unappreciative of our home, we just outgrew it and fast. I was pregnant with Zachary when we moved in and 3.5 years later we had 3 children in our tiny starter home. I managed to make it work. I think my organization skills have been tested in this house. We have moved furniture around so many times and bought tons of tubs and buckets to keep things from being scattered around the house. I DO NOT like clutter.

Finally, the timing was just right and God definitely showed us that our patience in our current home was going to pay off. Adam and I worked hard for about a month packing things up, removing pictures off of the walls, touching up on paint, laying mulch around the trees, and making everything as perfect as possible in a 30+ year old home. We put our house on the market late Monday night. I was hoping to have it on the market early Monday morning but it was cloudy and I wanted the "perfect" pictures. I wanted to make sure our house would sell fast.

I was not expecting to hear on Wed. that we got an offer on our house. What are you kidding me, 2 days on the market and we already got an offer? Not only did we get an offer but we got a full asking price offer. Praise the Lord! I prayed for a quick sale, but never thought it would happen that quickly.

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matt. 21:22

On Wed. we had 3 different people come to look at our house, so we decided that we would take the time to look at some houses ourselves. We looked at one in Birkdale because it was on the same street as some close friends. Unfortunately that house did not work for us. Then, we went to look at a brand new model home in Brandy Oaks. It was perfect and I knew it would work for our family. Adam was ready to put a contract on the house that night. This was before we had heard anything about our house and I told Adam I wanted to look at more. Yes, the house was great, but there are tons of houses on the market and I knew we would have some choices.

Friday afternoon we left to go on vacation to MO. This was a well needed vacation. We had worked so hard getting our house ready the month before and we knew we could rest easy knowing that we had a contract on our house. My Mom, a realtor, began to send me some more house via email and I made a list of about 20 homes to look at. We drove home in one day and started our search again on July 4th. We had also learned on this day that the house in Brandy Oaks that we really liked had a contract on it. Adam was devastated and he knew we should have put a contract on it before we left for vacation.

We spent the next 2 days looking at houses. I was amazed at how dirty and cluttered some houses were. Do not get me wrong. I know MOST people are not as OCD as I am, but if somebody was coming to look at your house at least sweep the floors and wipe down the light switches. It really isn't that hard. Then, we found what we thought should be our house.

We went back to my Mom's office to write a contract on the house in Hampton Park. We were excited. We decided to ask for a little less as we felt it was a little overpriced and we needed the current home owners to pay for closing. We were not expecting the counter-offer that we got. They raised the priced and said they would pay for closing. We said we did not want to do that and made another offer and they decided that they were not going to budge. We walked away from the home.

The next day my Mom was looking at more houses to send us. I felt I had looked at the list a gazillion times and felt they were all looking the same. She had noticed that the second house we really liked in Brandy Oaks was back on the market. We had also decided that at this point it might be better for us to build because I could not handle moving into a dirty home.

The next day we went to a brand new home. It was nice and it was in our price range. The only bad thing is that we needed the 3rd floor (that would be the school room/playroom) to be finished and there wasn't a deck on the house yet. We knew that we would have to put more money into the home to finish it up. We then looked back at the house in Brandy Oaks and decided that was our home. We decided to put a contract on it that day. Let me tell you debating between the 2 houses took us 5 hours. Isn't that ridiculous? We just wanted to make sure we picked the perfect home for us because this time around we plan on being in this home for a LONG time.

We went back and forth a couple of times on our offer and got exactly what we wanted. We wanted the builder to pay for closing, pave the driveway, and lower the price a little to keep it in our budget. We could not be happier.

Now the only thing we are waiting on is our closing date. It is scheduled to be Aug. 12th, but that could change because the loan that the home buyers on our current home is using is behind about 2 weeks. This could change in the next couple of weeks, but for now Adam and I will continue to pack up our boxes and get ready for the BIG move. Who wants to help?