What a Week!

This week was a crazy week! As you might have read in my previous blog, my husband and I are buying a house in Fowlerville. We are set to close at the end of May, and everything has been going wonderfully. It all fell into place almost miraculously. Easy peasy, right?

Well, there had been this house in Williamston that we all loved. It was a huge two story colonial that had plenty of room for everyone. My husband and I would have had our own separate offices, and we would even have had an extra bedroom … just in case. 🙂 It was a 2400 square foot home with four bedrooms plus an office on the main level. It also had 2.5 baths, so I would have been able to have a separate bathroom for visitors. It was absolutely perfect … or so we thought. For two months, we watched the house sit on the market while we struggled to get our finances in order. The moment that was all set, we placed a bid on this house. We knew it was way overpriced and badly marketed, which is probably why it sat untouched for two months. We thought maybe it was someone looking out for us; maybe the house was just waiting for us. So, we bid on the house, and the bank came back with a ridiculous counter offer. We responded with our highest and best and included a list of everything that was wrong with the house. According to the fair market value, the house should have been listed for 20 thousand less, and that’s just for starters. There was a weird fungus in the basement and a mold problem in the dining room that hinted at some kind of problem with the gutters. There were two broken windows, a hole in the ceiling of one of the bedroom closets where someone had obviously put their foot through the attic floor, there was an enormous dying tree right next to the house, the front covered porch was unfinished and sagging, the plumbing in the master bath had been leaking enough to stain the ceiling below, and I could go on. There was a lot to fix, but we still absolutely loved the house. It was in the right location, and it fit our needs perfectly. And, we thought for sure the bank would see reason and have someone check out the problems. We saw no reason they wouldn’t seriously consider our more than fair offer.

What happened? They pulled the house off the market in the middle of our negotiations. They fired the listing agent, and then our offer and the house were lost somewhere at this bank. For six weeks, we waited and hoped for a response. Nothing happened. Then, a few days ago (mere days after our offer was accepted on the Fowlerville house), the Williamston house came back on the market at the price I originally said it was worth.

What did I do? Well, I completely freaked out, of course!!! My real estate agent was on vacation this week, and I was mean enough to bother her. I smacked myself for it, don’t worry. She needed the vacation.

Anyway, I couldn’t understand what kind of joke the universe was trying to play on me. Why was this house ripped away from us mid offer only to come back on the market at the right price and just after we settled on another house? Did my husband and I make the wrong decision by not waiting for this house? Should we not have bid on the Fowlerville house? Now what would we do? Pull our offer and lose the money we’d already invested? We were both so confused.

We prayed and searched for the right answers. I tried doing a reading on it, but that was clear as mud. I wasn’t surprised, though. I can’t read for myself.

We strongly considered the possibility that we’d made a mistake. The Williamston house was a great location for my work as well as my husband’s work. We listed pros and cons of both houses and imagined what our lives would be like 5, 10, 15 years down the road in each house.

It was a very difficult decision. Even now that we’ve made the decision, both of us feel like we could be swayed the other way. But, we’ve decided to stick with the house in Fowlerville. Before we went out that night, I had a strong feeling we were going to find our house. We had actually liked two of the six houses we looked at and originally bid on another house. That owner expected an unreasonable amount of money for his house, so we decided he could keep his house. Once we had decided to bid on the other house, the house we have now, we felt like everything fell into place so very easily. The distance from my husband’s work is the main drawback, but it’s very close to our families. We both grew up in Fowlerville, and both our parents live within a few miles of our new house. Our new house is smaller than we were hoping for, but we can finish the basement. It was also built in 2001. The Williamston house was built in 1900; it was completely remodeled in 2002, but the foundation is questionable. After all the problems we’ve had with our basement flooding in our current house, we really love that the Fowlerville house is on a hill and has a very dry basement.

I have to believe that someone “upstairs” has been watching over us with this whole ordeal. When I really thought about it, I wondered if maybe it wasn’t Divine intervention that ripped the Williamston house away from us and removed the possibility of us buying it. Maybe only the fact that we were settled on another house allowed it to come back at the price it should have been listed for all along. That house has problems and will require a lot more maintenance and money long term. Our house in Fowlerville feels stable and good for our family, and that is something we really need. I honestly do not want to live in another house that is falling down around me. Our inspections on our new house are scheduled for next week, so we will see what happens. This will be when we find out for sure if we’re making the right decision; if we’re heading to where we’re meant to be. I believe we are, but then again I can’t always trust the intuition I get for myself.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

~ Sheri