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| Relevant picture of cute child |
When I posted my status on Facebook today about packing, I went back and read the post I wrote about having our house on the market and I realized I'm long overdue for an update.
(short version)
We're under contract! Hooray! Praise God!
(long version)
We (and by we, I mean mostly me) were getting show weary and after 6 weeks on the market with no offers, talked to our realtor about taking it off. She encouraged us to wait until after the election, since people were waiting on big decisions until then and we agreed. That was a Monday.
That Monday was the day after we got home from a wonderful vacation with my parents. It took us a few days to unpack and put things away, but in those few days people kept showing up to look at the house. Now, to back up a few weeks, I had spent several very stressful and long-hour days early in September getting the house "staged" to show. And if you wondered, it is not like the shows where the stagers come and send the owners off and they come back to a delightfully lovely show-ready house. Ha!
If I thought it was hard to stage the house, it was even harder to live in a staged house, being ready at the drop of a hat to have someone come through it. That's why I was show-weary. And that's why I was taking my time unpacking from vacation, because with no appointments to see the house, I was enjoying just getting to live in it and let Ayla play with all her stuff.
So, Sunday we get home, Monday we decided to stay on the market a bit longer, Thursday a couple shows up to see the house without having called me first. Our place was a mess! Probably not hoarder style mess, but definitely not show ready. I let them come in and see it since they had gone to all the trouble to come, I just apologized profusely for the mess and asked them to please come see it during the open house that weekend when it would be beautiful. They were very kind about it and mentioned that they didn't mind getting to see what it would look like when they lived there.
The following Monday they came to see it again, with an appointment, and the next day they put in an offer! Full asking price with no seller subsidy. This was such an answer to prayer. The week before we put our house on the market, two other houses in our neighborhood went on. Since we're in a townhouse community, all the houses are virtually identical. Ours has a few more upgrades than the others that are (still) for sale, but I think the main difference was the mess. Had to be!
That was about three weeks ago and we close in another three weeks and have passed all the hurdles between offer and closing so far. The home inspection and appraisal came back with expected results and the couple seems really excited to move in and start making this their home.
Meanwhile, we've been looking for a place for us to live between now and next summer. Of course God answered this prayer, too, and provided us with a beautiful rental house in our price range right in the neighborhood we wanted with a landlord who was willing to do a short-term lease. We're moving in over there this weekend, though we can take our time before having to be out of here.
We are still looking for a new family for Mocha. The Virginia family I mentioned before turned out to have dog allergies, which may have been important information to know before they started looking for a dog, but at least they found out before adopting her!
She's got a new best friend, though, who would spend every waking moment with her if we'd let her!
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| Cute child with new best friend |
And in completely unrelated moving news, Ayla's hair is long enough for this now.
