a new house....

This is the picture from the real estate listing.  Our new house!

As you have probably have figured out, we moved...back at the very end of August.  Yes, I know it's October, but give me a little break.  Moving is HARD work!

There's so much I want to tell you about our new home, and how we came to own it.  It's an unbelievable blessing!

So here's the first part of the story.

First, we bought a house that had been in foreclosure.  The amazing thing is that we know the previous owners, and they were the ones who invited us in, showed us their home, and suggested we try to buy it from the bank.  They are wonderful people, who enjoyed the home, and in their graceful way, wanted another family to love it too.   At the time, I was pregnant with Benjamin, and we knew that we were very quickly outgrowing our 2000 sq ft, 3 bedroom home.  6 people, 4 young kids, 3 bedrooms....things were starting to get tight.   And then things started happening....

Last Halloween was the first time I saw and LOVED this home.  We were trick-or-treating in the neighborhood, and the previous owners answered the door and invited us in to look around.  As we were walking away, Aaron asked me what I thought.  I said, "It's amazing and we'll never own it.  There's just NO way." (I'm really coming off as a glass-half full person, huh?)  But the truth is that this neighborhood, and house are much nicer than I ever dreamed we would live in.   Aaron was calm and cool and just said, "you never know."  Over the next few months we talked on and off.  We talked with our families, small group, and asked friends to pray.  At that time, it seemed almost impossible.  The owners of the home moved out, and the bank took possession within days of Benjamin being born.  In the busy time of welcoming our new little guy, I had no capacity to ponder a new home, and it slipped off my radar.  But not Aaron's.  He loved this house from the moment he saw it, and diligently researched and learned as much as he could about buying a foreclosure.  It was extremely helpful that we knew the previous owners and they were willing to give us all of the information we needed.  In fact, when they moved out, they gave us all of their touch up paint...just in case we ended up buying the house.

To make a very long story, a little bit shorter, here's what happened.  The house went up for auction and didn't sell, went on the market for  90 days for more than we could afford, went down a little, and then went back on auction 3 more times.  The price was getting lower and we were confident it was in our range.  We contacted the selling agent and let him know we wanted to make an offer as soon as it came off of auction and back on the market.  The agent was skillful. He contacted the bank, they pulled it off of auction early, and we made our offer immediately.  With some minor negotiations, the bank accepted our offer.  To say that we got a "deal" would be a gross understatement.  We got an amazing steal of deal.

In the meantime, we had listed our home for sale, and it sold within 40 days of being on the market.  Phewwww!  

We owned both homes for a month, which was actually a relief.  There was lots of work to be done at our new place.  You can read all about that in another post!