Back in March, our friends (and neighbors) listed their home for sale so that they could build a new home. We once again found ourselves wishing that we could move to a more "suitable" home for our family. It's not that our house is awful, it's just not good for how we use our spaces. We went as far as talking with a realtor only to find that we couldn't afford to sell our house. Oh well, that's what we expected. The market has been bad for quite a while, and our neighborhood was hard-hit with foreclosures.
Fast-forward to the end of April, our neighbor's house sold, as did another neighbor's home ... at much higher prices than we were told we could sell for ... we contacted our realtor again, who said that he had been planning to call us the next morning to let us know that he'd been watching our neighborhood and was amazed, but we could sell for about $20,000 more than he thought! So, in a hurried frenzy, we got our house ready to list and then left for vacation (not-so-secretly hoping it would sell while we were gone for 10 days).
Once we were back from vacation we started looking at houses. The first day we were out, we went into a fantastic bank-owned home that was in Shakopee; not quite where we were thinking, but the location was great and the price was amazing. We put an offer in ... they had 5 others and we were not the best one. Oh well, we went into this process saying that we didn't want a house unless it was the one God had for us. So we kept looking. We later found another that we really liked, put an offer in and again it had multiple offers and we didn't get the house. No big deal, we are still figuring out where we want to be anyway ....
Fast-forward again, this time to July. Our house still hadn't sold, we are beginning to lose hope that it will sell. We get a call on July 3 that someone wants to see our house on July 4th in the evening ... of course, we say yes, they can come ... but inside I'm thinking that these people are awfully rude/weird to interrupt my plans on the 4th of July! Don't they know that we were going to have friends over?!
Skip to July 10 (our anniversary), we are out to meet our realtor and look at a couple houses that are new to the market. We get to the first house and our realtor says, "So ... I have news ..." my heart dropped and I assumed the market had dropped to a point that we would not be able to sell. "We have an offer on your house." We talked with him about this offer as we looked at the two houses that we were looking at that day. Discussing how crazy it was that we had that offer, because it changed everything! With our home sold, we could afford a larger home that was more like what we were wanting. Craziest part is that if we hadn't had that offer presented to us at 1:30, we would have been putting an offer in on the second house we saw that day ... one that we didn't LOVE, but it met our needs and was a nice house in an AMAZING location. BUT, because we had that offer, we held off putting in an offer until we could see what came of this offer and what opened up with a higher price-point. We did end up negotiating a sale, and had a great anniversary gift from someone we've never met - a sold house!
We had our realtor change our MLS search criteria to include higher-priced homes and sorted through the 50+ new homes in an evening ... narrowing our search down to 2 homes ... an existing home that had been on the market for quite a while, or building our own home in a desirable neighborhood in Shakopee. We wanted to see the existing home before deciding to build, so our realtor scheduled that.
On Friday, July 12, 2013 - I walked into a home that I am quite certain God had been holding for us! It was everything we wanted and more! It has a great neighborhood (we had looked at another in the same neighborhood, but it wasn't quite what we were looking for), large yard, great features and it's on a cul-de-sac! What more could we ask for?! It had been on the market for quite a while (since the end of May), there had been interest, but never an offer. It still is rather surreal to even think that in 3 weeks (and 1 day) that will be our home!
God has shown himself to us in so many ways throughout this process. He has taught us to rely on Him, to not settle for less than what He wants for us, to FULLY trust in Him... and so much more.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
This has become a key verse for us and has become our mantra!
Oh - and if you need a GREAT realtor, contact Chuck Hinsz!!
Oh - and if you need a GREAT realtor, contact Chuck Hinsz!!
