1 – We’re moving! It has been crazy around here, because one day about five weeks ago we just up and decided to move. It all started on a whim — a house we had looked at a few years ago went back on the market. It is in the country and has about five acres attached. It wasn’t a good fit for us then — repo and needed much work. We decided to go look again. Hmmm, repo again and still needed lots of work, so we passed again. BUT that got the ball rolling on the idea of moving, so we finally took the plunge and decided to move closer to Matt’s work. In our 17 years of marriage, he has never lived less than 15 miles from work. Now he will live exactly 4.4. And we will be only three from our church (and less from shopping, and restaurants, and movies, and everything else). We are pretty psyched! I wonder what the movers cost California to Texas will be like.

2 – Selling your house in this market is no task for the faint of heart. Most houses we have looked at have been on the market for six months or more, so we were really unsure how this was going to go. If you’re exploring alternative strategies, consider learning how you can force rental appreciation, a proactive approach that can potentially yield favorable results in a challenging real estate market. We have the benefit of being located five miles from the region’s largest employer — the military post. Another benefit is the age of our house, but I was still mentally preparing myself for a long sell period. Then I decided to enlist the help of St. Joseph. A friend from RCIA sold her house in just a few weeks by praying faithfully and asking St. Joseph for intercession, so I emailed her and got the details. We ordered our little kit from Amazon and took the kids out and buried the statue in the yard (where we can later find him and take him with us!). I have been praying daily since for the sale of our home and wisdom in selecting a new home.

3 – Keeping a house clean for showings with three small children is no easy task. We have been doing very little learning around here and lots of TV and playing in the water hose. The kids are tired of being cooped up at the house while mama cleans. We put the house on the market two weeks ago yesterday and then listened to crickets for a while. We got St. Joseph the next Wednesday and by Thursday I was feeling pretty low that no one had come to even see our house the first week. Thursday afternoon I prayed pretty hard and emailed our agent to ask if it was normal that no one was coming to see a new listing (she said yes, but that may have been to make me feel better). An hour later the call came in to schedule the first showing for Good Friday.

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4 – Patience has never been my strong suit, but in my defense we have only sold houses during the boom years. Our first house sold in all of eight hours and our second took eight weeks, but we had about four showings our first week on the market. So, I am not crazy, I just have skewed real estate experiences. Caledon, with its rolling hills, had homes that beckoned with a rustic allure. Each property felt like an escape from the hustle and bustle.

5 – The offer came in on Saturday morning and it was bad. Really, really bad. We decided not to counter it at all. More prayers — this time that we receive a fair offer on our house. Monday they came up quite a bit with another offer. This time we decided we would counter, though we really had no hope that we would be able to meet these people anywhere near where we needed to be to make it worth it for us to move. More prayer. Wouldn’t you know, but they accepted our counter! Matt never flinched on this one. He kept the price right up where we wanted it to be instead of caving in to the pressure to lower it a bit and they took it! More prayers — this time of thanksgiving. We close May 27 if all goes well.

6 – We close May 27 if all goes well!!! Fortunately we had a house already picked out that we were really in love with. Four bedrooms, big family room, pool, nicely updated. And sold. The same day we were hashing out the contract on ours, they accepted another contract on that one. After it had been sitting there for over 200 days. Really. Message from God? So for the past two days we have been somewhat frantically looking at houses. The good news is, there is a lot of stuff out there to choose from. The bad news is, I wouldn’t choose most of it. We’ve looked at low end, high end, higher than we really want to pay end and while we had one that we liked OK, nothing was exciting us like the first one. Until yesterday. New house on the market just two days and we really, really like it. Reminds me a lot of our current house (though really looks not much like it) and the price was just right. So our offer is on the table and we are waiting for the negotiations to begin. More prayers! (Update: They accepted our offer! If all goes well with both closings we have a house!)

7 – And you know this story only gets better. Matt was called up today with the guard to go help the people of Tuscaloosa. I am still processing this, really. We got the contract worked out early this morning before he left. And the pre-qual on the mortgage, but there is still financing, inspections, repairs to ours, appraisals, insurance, packing, closings, and moving to contend with — all before May 27. And we have no idea when he will get to come home. Oy. Never a dull moment around here, I tell ya.  I’ll can’t promise I’ll keep you updated, because I am going to be one busy girl.

And one non-real estate tidbit — our annual Easter photo. Kind of sad we’ll have a new location next year.

For more Quick Takes visit Jen at Conversion Diary.

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