No Joke

If I'd written this a day earlier, I might have even mistaken it for an April Fool's joke.

A month ago, the ground was brown and there were remnants of snow.  Today, the grass is turning green and the flowers are starting to bloom.  It's rainy and chilly, but we are definitely in a new season.  I can't decide if we (Kent and I) are in a new season or one really long one of trials and waiting.

Let me start by saying, that we definitely are NOT those people who sold their house after having it on the market for only a few days.  I'm sitting here looking at the for sale sign in our front yard now.  Long story short...after two weeks of not being able to show our house because it was under contract, the buyer backed out.  Through no fault of our own, the buyer totally broke his contract and landed us back on the market.

Last week, we spent about 18 hours looking at over 25 houses in Ohio.  We narrowed it down to three.  Ok, really just two, but I had a favorite that wasn't really in the running.  The two houses had their pros and cons and we would have been perfectly happy in either of them.  On a whim, we had our agent take us to look at one that was only six miles from my husband's work. 

After a few minutes of walking through the house, we decided it was quite possible "The One."  We drove by again the next day and tried to picture ourselves living there.  There is already a fenced yard for the dogs.  It sits on almost 2 acres, plenty of room for a garden.  It is a newer house, built in 2008.  It met my only two requirements, big kitchen and big master bedroom.  It met Kent's only requirement, laundry on the main level.  There is no basement, but lots of storage space.  It has a huge garage and a huge shop/garage/barn.  It has three bedrooms or two bedrooms and a craft room for me.  All the appliances came with it, as did a hot tub.  Probably the most outstanding part was that we both just knew it was right and agreed without arguement.  As a bonus, the price was well below what we intended to spend and far below the appraisal.  A win in so many directions for us.

Once we took a day to think about it, we decided to make an offer.  Precisely 2 hours after the offer was accepted, we found out that we had lost the contract on our house.  Talk about an emotional roller coaster and total shift in direction.

We are in this completely wonky time right now.  This past month feels like forever.  We are waiting and waiting and waiting.  It's still been a short time, but there is so much hanging in limbo that it feels like forever.

My husband's company is expecting him in Ohio the first of May.  We are moving forward on appraisals and inspections with the house in Ohio.  We do so in faith that ours will sell.  But when, we don't know. 

There is a growing pit in my stomach for what comes after this week.  The conversations, the decisions.  We've asked our mortgage lender to approve our home loan not contingent on the sell of our current home, hoping to have some freedom in our decision making.  But even that is out of our hands at this time.  It all depends on an underwriter and what they choose for us.

We have our movers scheduled.  All our stuff has plans to be in Ohio on May 1st.  We only have so many options.

My husband can go without me and live out of a hotel until our house sells.  If he does that, we will be forced to let our little house go.  If that happens, we will be out a moving deposit, all living expenses provided by my husband's company (the only real and small benefit they've given us for moving), we will be out appraisal, loan and inspection fees.

If the loan company approves us without contingency, we can move and leave an empty house on the market.  This would work for us for about three months and again, use every penny of that little benefit we are getting from his company.  If it didn't sell in three months, we would likely be forced into a short sale.

Our last and most favorable option is that a buyer come within the next two weeks.  We can likely get an extension on closing and/or extension on move date. 

Regardless of what is next, this time is so frustrating.  I wanted to be enjoying our last month here, we both did.  Now we are on this hurry up and wait hampster wheel.  We both have faith that God is still moving in our lives and provides everything at the right time.  It's so hard to see it in the disappointments and when we look at difficult decisions.  So, we pray...Lord, please bring us a buyer for our house.