How we didn't sell our house

When we started our first house hunting 7 years ago we went through a lot.  We made offers on 5 houses and paid for inspections on three before losing them due to something ridiculous before finally finding our house 6 months later.  We were so thankful for all that we went through because in the end none of the houses were as "good" as this one.  It was the best price in the best neighborhood and while it needed a LOT of work it was all things we could do ourselves (except laying carpet and putting the roof on, the only two things we have paid someone else to do for us).  So we had hoped that selling our house and finding a new one would be an easier process for us....BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Oh we are so silly....

We started making plans to put our house on the market this spring last October.  We looked at the first house in December.  We looked at 15 more houses during January, February, March and April. We became nervous about selling our house when we weren't finding anything else that we liked.  We put in new carpet, added hardware to the cabinets, replaced the roof, touched up paint everywhere, put new trim in our bedroom, finished the fireplace, cleaned and de-cluttered like crazy.  In May we finally found something that we liked and made an offer contingent on selling our house.  Our house didn't sell as quickly as everyone thought it would.  We lowered the price.  We changed our mind about the house we made an offer on and backed out.  We continued to look at more houses and continued keeping our house ready to show at a moment's notice.  Then it came unexpectedly on a Saturday evening when I hadn't picked up my phone for hours.  A full price offer!  They wanted my double-oven and we were asked to pay closing costs but that still put us in a good position and we accepted.  They had a letter from the bank stating their pre-approval for the loan.  We needed to find a new house NOW.

We spent the next two weeks looking at every house we could find trudging around in 90 degree temperatures looking through disappointment after disappointment.  We had some requirements, sure, but they didn't seem THAT unreasonable.  A garage for Bryce's shop, a "big enough" back yard, three rooms on one level (no more split level), a master bath,  and a place to park our old Packard.  It didn't seem like a long list of desires but soon proved it was. The house would have most of what we wanted and then a weird backyard.  Or the house was too new, or too dated (even for me).  Nothing was quite right.  After seeing another 20 or so houses I was feeling defeated.  Our "homelessness" status was fast approaching and we were going to have to pack up everything and leave our lovely home with no new home in sight...

On  Wednesday night two weeks before closing I had a break down crying that I wanted to back out of the deal and stay in our house.  Sure it's not perfect, but at least we aren't paying MORE money for a different not perfect house.  We know how to deal with what is wrong with our house.  Plus our house is DONE!  On Thursday morning a good friend called because she knew I was super stressed about the house stuff.  After talking it through with her I finally decided that one of the houses we really liked had MOST of what we wanted and would work.  It was in the right school district although not the "area" I wanted to be in.  It was a split level but still had three bedrooms on one level, and it was two lots together so Bryce could build a shop.  I called Bryce, told him to call the realtor and make an offer.  In the mean time a friend of mine that I met through the store (she even worked for me there!) posted on facebook that she was having a huge yard sale and moving to Alaska!  So I started asking her about her house (I hadn't been there before). It sounded perfect, so I asked her could we see it?

I called Bryce back, this is it!  We were both so excited and anxious we could hardly get anything done until he got off work and we headed straight to her house.  It was literally perfect, EVERYTHING we wanted.  Three bedrooms on one level, big kitchen, laundry on the main floor, walk straight out to the back yard, PLUS a huge basement with two more bedrooms.  It has a master bath, it had a HUGE area for Bryce to build a shop and more than enough room to park the old car. AND she would leave me her five chickens!  I told her we will make an offer.  That night we did.  We had somewhere to live!!!  We would close on our house July 15 and then move in to the new house August 8th, we would live with Bryce's parents and spend some time camping and staying at my mom's too.  They would let us move all our stuff in to the basement so we didn't have to pay to store things.  They didn't have to worry about selling their house before moving to Alaska, it was meant to be, we all believed God had a hand in this one.  It was all too perfect.

Then on Monday after the Fourth of July weekend, after spending the weekend sharing our new house with all of our friends and family, we were scheduled to have the appraisal, the guy didn't show.  After many phone calls and a stressful morning we learned that our buyers financing had fallen through.  two of the four people signing on our house had their own personal business which of course they wrote of everything for and didn't pay taxes.  Then when they filled out their pre-approval paperwork claiming they had so much money in the past two years.  When they bank finally saw their taxes it showed no income, they didn't qualify.  We were devastated.

Bryce and I spent two days depressed, walking around angry and unsure what to do next.  We put the house back on the market, I had already packed so many of our things, we weren't show ready and we had to work hard to get the house back in order.  We worried we would lose the new house.  We all felt awful and stressed.  The buyers who lost their financing showed up at our door after dinner one night asking if they could rent our house, the nerve!  And where are we supposed to live while you live in our house???  They offered to pay us $10,000 advanced rent to help with our down payment.  Sure is nice to have other people think that we  must be made of money and could at some point afford two mortgages (which we can't by the way), and that $10,000 was a down payment for us (which is wasn't). We clearly turned them down.

The house showed a lot, we lowered the price again.  We wondered what would happen, where would we live?  Where will our kids go to school?  It was so stressful.  Our contingent offer came to a close on Thursday July 30th.  We made the very difficult decision to take our house off the market at that point.  I expected to feel incredibly sad on that Thursday, but I didn't.  I felt relieved.  We could stay in our nice house, I could unpack our things and put our pictures back on the wall.  We could start planning for everything coming up (school starting, a new baby!).  I wanted to give my house a big hug and tell her I'm so sorry we put everybody through this (I believe houses have feelings, I blame this on the children's book "The Little House").

It was an INCREDIBLY difficult and painful process.  It is difficult to explain to people what happened and part of me feels like we "failed" at selling our house.  But in the end, we get to stay in a very nice house with a much smaller mortgage, it's not perfect, but EVERYTHING about it is something we have done ourselves, with our own blood, sweat and tears, and hours and hours of work. It may not have been the outcome we hoped for when this all started, but I believe it is what was meant to happen.  We may not know why just yet, but someday we will know why this is the way it all worked out (or there is no freaking reason for it but I'm an optimist so I can't help but think there are better things to come...).  So we will stay here and we will love our imperfect little/big house. Stay tuned to see how we will fit three kids in one bedroom!