Last week on Sunday I started thinking about selling our house. I think about it a lot. There's some things I don't love about the house that aren't changeable, like the kitchen not having an island (too small to add one) or that the bedrooms on the main floor are not near each other. I'm also really sick of being on the golf course, especially since we had Kaycee. Last year we were very worried about her getting hit and we had planned to get a golf net this summer. We had dinner at my in laws last Sunday and I asked my in laws, my go to parents for advice, what they would do if they were in our shoes. We don't need to move but the market is good and we could. My father in law (who is seriously my money idol and someone I really trust and respect his opinions) said he'd sell it. Jake and I talked about it 6 months ago and Jake didn't want to but this time he wasn't quite so adamant about staying.
Monday I used Dave Ramsey's ELP website looking for an endorsed realtor and had 5 realtors call me in 7 minutes. And that isn't an exaggeration. I called Jake to see if he wanted to meet with one of them and he said he wanted to meet with the realtor who sold us out house 4 years ago Joanna Williams. I started telling the ELP realtors no thanks and called Joanna. She was thrilled and said she'd come Wednesday to meet with us. I knew our house needed some serious deep cleaning and organizing to show well so I called my 2 youngest sisters Jeannene and Lauryl to see if they'd help after school if I paid them. They both agreed!
Tuesday my sisters both came over and we got a ton done. Jake even helped when he got home from work. Wednesday we scrubbed more and by the time Joanna came we had a sparkling house with just a few things left. We met with Joanna and liked the comps and decided to list our house. The carpet cleaner wasn't coming for 8 more days so we decided to post pone listing it for a bit and we'd keep in touch.
My sisters and I kept cleaning walls, baseboards, blinds and windows along with vacuuming stairs, nooks and cranny's. Friday the photographer came and took the pictures of our house and yard. They turned out fabulous! I ended up moving our carpet cleaning day up to Monday, 1 week after we decided to move, so we put the MLS listing up Monday morning and waited. Average home is on the market 42 days.
We waited 2 hours and had a showing scheduled for 5:00 the next day, Tuesday. 2 hours later we had another one that wanted to come that night, Monday! We cancelled it because the carpet was still wet and had Josnna call the realtor to explain. They rescheduled for 8:00 AM the next day. And an hour later we had another showing at 7:00 the next evening. 3 showings within 5 hours of going up - we were so pumped! Joanna said to expect 5 - 6 showings before we get an offer so we weren't expecting much and figured it'd be good practice since I've never "shown" a house.
Monday night we went and looked at a home on Decrescendo Drive. It's still in Eagle Mountain but it's in the Silverlake subdivision. We absolutely love it. It's the same floor plan, nearly to a T of the "Cherokee" house we waited on for 6 months before we bought this house. It has everything single feature I wanted and a 3 car garage for Jake. We put an offer in on it that night - first house we saw. We knew we loved it.
That night I cleaned the house and made everything sparkle once Kaycee was asleep. We went to bed and Tuesday I woke up and cleaned for over an hour before waking Kaycee up, loading her and anything of Max's into the Durango and we left for my in laws while we had our first showing. Leaving your house with every light on intentionally is a very weird feeling. We ate breakfast and hung out and got a call from our realtor just after 9:30 that we had an offer in on the house. THE FIRST PERSON TO LOOK AT IT PUT IN AN OFFER! And it was a FULL PRICE offer! I was shocked and so were my in laws. I called Jake who was totally freaking out that we'd got an offer on it so fast! Kayc, Max and I came home and I put her down for a nap and tried to work but could barely think straight. That night we cleaned really good again and left to get something to eat before we had pack meeting for Cub Scouts so that we wouldn't eat dinner at 8:00 that night since we had 2 showings back to back. We got a call while at pack meeting that the seller of the Decrescendo Drive house had countered us. We countered back and waited to see if either the 5:00 or 7:00 would put in an offer. Neither one did so we accepted the original offer just before the 10:00 deadline.
The next morning, Wednesday, the buyer confirmed and we were officially under contract on selling our house. Less than 48 hours after appearing on the MLS and 9 days from when the thought of selling even popped into my head. To think how much prep and stuff happened in those 9 days is crazy! Later that night, we got verbal confirmation the Decrescendo Drive seller had accepted our offer - verbally under contract on one and officially on the other!
That brings us to today. We still haven't received the signed confirmation but it's because the sellers agent was having difficulties with the website. We're expecting it sometime this morning. And I am feeling so many emotions I can't see straight.
Trust. I fasted Sunday that we'd be able to sell it quickly and get the price we wanted and find somewhere to go. That was answered to say the least! We prayed we'd get an answer back on the Decrescendo Drive house last night because we hadn't heard anything and it was technically past deadline. Within 4 minutes of me, my mom and my sisters prayers, the agent called with the news. Things are really falling into place. I have felt very strongly like we would totally be able to sell and that I shouldn't be worried about that at all. I get a very calm feeling when I think about selling. It hasn't been stressful at all!
Patience. I think it's because this house looks SOOO much like Cherokee and Cherokee fell through but I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the fact that it's really happening. The buy doesn't seem real. The sell feels real but not the buy. Not sure if that's because it may not work out or if it's because the house looks so much like Cherokee that I can just feel the disappointment still or what. We'll see what happens! Cherokee "verbally accepted" too and then it fell through. Maybe once the docs come it'll feel more real.
Grateful. I cannot believe how fast we sold. I cannot believe how much our home has gone up in value. We are selling it for $82,000 more than we paid for it and $105,000 more than we owe on it. That blows my mind. Those are HUMONGOUS numbers. To have that much equity at our age feels so crazy. And I'm so dang proud of us! I'm grateful that we've been led this direction. I'm grateful for how handy Jake and his dad are and how many wonderful improvements they've made on the house. I know that's a HUGE factor of why were able to sell for so much.
Irony. When Jake and I very first started to look for a house, we drove past this exact house on Decrescendo and called on it. It was like $50,000 out of our price range so we definitely said no and didn't think twice. Because it's such a unique street name though Jake and I have both remembered it. And it's the exact same house! If this ends up working out, I think it'd be crazy ironic that we ended up buying it, just a few years later and that it's the exact floor plan of the house I loved (Cherokee) that we lost.
Anxious. I hate living in boxes so I won't be packing until we're pretty close to go time. We'll be doing a conventional loan with Bank of AF again (they're amazing!) and they can do it in 3 weeks. They said that last time and it ended up being 2 so it could be faster. The problem is our buyer is doing the USDA 0% down rural housing loan and those take longer to do. Our realtor told us 45 days but people who have done the loan in our neighborhood have told us it went faster. Right now I'm focusing on collecting boxes so we can be ready and starting to declutter so we can trash, donate or sell things we don't want to take with us. I'm OCD about organization, especially since I quit my job and became a stay home mom. This will be fun for me! I love organizing :)
Devastated. We are beyond bummed to leave our ward and our neighborhood. Because we're only moving 2 miles away we've joked about keeping our records in the ward and just staying here but I don't think we really will. That's pat of the adventure of moving - meeting neighbors and making new friends in your neighborhood and church is an awesome way to meet people. Our current neighborhood does a huge 4th of July celebration and we plan to come back every year to still see everyone. And we may come to this ward once in a while to say hi. We'll miss everybody SOOO much. That's been a huge factor for why we haven't moved sooner. This is the best ward we've ever been in and we're so sad to leave it.
Nostalgic. Our lives have changed SOOO much in this house. I was endowed while we lived in this house. I lost over 100 pounds in this house. Jake became active in the church in this house. Jake got the Priesthood back in this house. We got pregnant while we lived in this house. Jake got endowed while we lived in this house. We got sealed in this house. We had Kayc in this house. She crawled, rolled over, said mama and dada for the first time in this house. It's sad to think about leaving it, especially since our lives have changed so drastically from the time we bought it until now. It makes me happy that we have such fond memories of this house. And we'll definitely still see it, especially Jake as he's golfing.
Like I said, lots of emotions. But I feel so peaceful. This will all work out just the way it should. It's all going to work. And we are SOOO excited about the Decrescendo house. It has a much bigger kitchen, a front formal room and a family room (and a Christmas tree window!!!). It has a beautiful laundry room with cabinets. It has a coat closet! It has a bigger master closet. It has 4 bedrooms on the same floor instead of 3. It has a 3 car garage. It's everything we'd wanted and we found it on the first look. Granted we looked at the pictures of probably 50 houses but we didn't see anything we loved until this one. I'm trying not to get too excited because I don't want to be devastated if something happens but the excitement is just below the service - I can feel myself being so excited I can barely contain it and I just keep pushing it down. We order the home inspection this week sometime - hoping that comes back all clear! I'm sure our buyer will be doing his inspection and appraisal sometime soon as well. I'll try to blog as much as I can so we can remember all this. It's so different from last time - we looked at SOOOO many houses. Like 60 houses. And I'm not exaggerating. To only look at 1 this time feels weird. But it's what we want. And I'm so excited.
And holding my breath.
