The House Hunt

Here's the skinny on what's going on with our house hunt. We haven't been too vocal about the fact that we were looking because we weren't sure how successful we would be.

So, the lease on our apartment is up on October 13th. We had been contemplating what kind of move to make with the baby coming in December since we would need a little more room than our current 2 bed/2 bath apartment has. I know that sounds like plenty of bedrooms, but with Leland's work in IT and all the "stuff" we had stored in our office closet, there really wasn't room for a baby since we need a dedicated space for an office.

Leland was really pushing to buy a house because of the market and because he doesn't want to keep moving around. I had been fighting this because I am still wary of home buying ever since our bad experience two years ago. We had gone through the process of building a home from start to finish and ended up walking away from it. We lost our earnest money ($1500) but it's a good thing because we probably would have lost our house when the market collapsed. Anyway, we talked about renting a house because the rent on quite a few homes was the same as our current rent, but Leland kept coming back to buying. Long story short (or maybe not) we currently have offers in on two houses in Leland's parents' and the Gallachers' neighborhood.

The first offer is on a short sale and has been accepted by the seller. We are waiting for their lender to approve it, which shouldn't be an issue since they had a previous buyer fall through after this purchase price was approved by the lender. Now it's just a matter of waiting for their official response. This house has 4 bedrooms, which Leland likes because our office will always have a dedicated space even if we have more kids.

The second offer went in late last week and we are hoping for a response sometime today or tomorrow. This one is a bank-owned home and is a smidge bigger than the first. It has 3 bedrooms and a larger living room than the first house, which I like because I want to be able to have people over without feeling crowded and have lots of room for our kid(s) to play where we can see them.

While all of the offers were going in and we discovered the second house, I was going through some really stressful emotions. We were concerned that we might lose our earnest money (since we've done that before, it's a little more of a big deal to us) if we had offers accepted on both homes, but we didn't want to put all of our eggs in one basket just in case something crazy happened with the offer on the first house. But after a little clarification from our realtor (I'm sure he thinks I am crazy because I've called him 10 times in one day and that's happened more that once) we are much more calm about everything because we won't lose our earnest money if we end up having to choose between two houses. I had myself so worked up and one point I was ready to withdraw our offer on the first house because I thought there were too many things I didn't like about it.

I realized I had to take all my stress and scared feelings about this and turn them over to the Lord. I asked for guidance in making the decisions regarding this and also asked for help in knowing that everything will work out the way it's supposed to. Since this I've felt a huge part of the burden lifted from me and I feel like I will be okay with either house. I am just feeling so blessed that we can even buy a house, it's such a blessing to be able to provide that security for your family and I needed to realize this and focus on it. I know that no house will be perfect and that we'll need to make adjustments for the little things we don't like and REALLY I should be grateful for my wonderful husband and the healthy baby we have coming and that we will be happy no matter where we live as long as we have the gospel and love each other.

In the meantime, we'll be moving in with Leland's parents until we can get through escrow with whichever house we end up buying. This is another blessing that I'm grateful for. This will allow us to save paying rent for the next month and a half (at the increased month-to-month rate) and that extra money will help us buy the baby's furniture as we move into our house.

My family came over to help us pack on Saturday and it was such a huge help. I'm not able to bend over or lift anything anymore since my ever-expanding belly is getting in the way. We got so much done and it was such a relief to come out of my room where I'd been packing my closet with Leland and my mom and see that dad had finished packing all my photos and decor items in my living room. We'll be moving our furniture and boxes to a storage unit over the next two weeks and moving our bed and clothes to David and Lawanna's house this Saturday. Thank you to everyone who has helped take parts of the stress of this away from me.