When Plans Change
It’s almost 5:00 on a Friday afternoon and I am exhausted. Not only am I running on a mere 4 hours of sleep, but I am stressed out of my mind. This has been one of the busiest seasons of my life in a long, long time, and it surprisingly has little to do with my business.
About a Month Ago…
Zach and I did something absolutely crazy. We decided to sell our house. It felt like it was on a whim, but the truth is we have had plans to sell our house for the last year. We were just waiting for the right time. In all honestly, two weeks before Christmas was definitely NOT the timing we had in mind. The plan was for this spring. “Stick to the plan!” I kept telling myself, but God had something else in mind for us.
Zach and I have had our eye on a specific neighborhood in Chapel Hill for the last few years. When we bought our first home, we were in a season of our life where we couldn’t afford a house in this neighborhood. So, we settled on a beautiful 3-story townhome in Raleigh that we have come to love.
Over the years, the commute for Zach has continued to be a very frustrating part of our living situation. He drives 45 mins-1.5 hours each way to work. It’s definitely NOT ideal, so when a charming house became available for less than appraisal price, we jumped on the opportunity to buy it.
First Thing’s First…
We needed to get our house under contract before we could make an offer…during the absolute worst time of year to sell a house. You see, our house gained enough equity over the last 2.5 years that allowed us to have that 20% down payment for our new house. Without our house under contract, we wouldn’t have the purchasing power we needed to make an enticing offer. So we got the house ready and waited for offers.
17 days later and we were under contract! Not too bad for December/January, but the “fun” was only beginning. Once your home goes under contract, you need to deal with inspections, repairs, negotiations, packing, moving everything out, and cleaning. At the end of all of that, you pray that everything passes and you’re able to make the buyer happy with any negotiations. The goal is to keep them happy so they don’t pull out of the contract during the Due Diligence period. I thought it was going to be a fairly smooth process, but it is STRESSFUL, y’all!!! Especially when you’re under contract to buy a new house.
A New Adventure Awaits
You read that right. The day after our house went under contract, we put an offer in on the house that started it all. They accepted the offer within an hour! We started this whole process for this beautiful three-bedroom home in the Briar Chapel Community in Chapel Hill, and we actually bought it!
Not only has the move and home-buying process been stressful on its own, but we are closing on both homes THIS MONTH. No…I’m not joking. Our closing dates are just one day apart and just 3 weeks after after the offers were accepted. Talk about a fast turnaround!
So What’s Next?
By the time this post is published, Zach and I will be less than a week away from closing on our new house! We are SO excited for this new season of our life, and we are ready to be in our new house. All I have to say is that I’m really very thankful that we decided to do this now instead of the spring. I couldn’t imagine having to do all of my editing work on top of getting the house ready to move. God has proven to me once again that He is watching out for us, and it’s okay that our plans change!
What’s to Come
Since we are doing our last big move for a while, I want to do a series of housing-related posts over the next few weeks. I am going to do a tour of our current house (because I didn’t have a blog when we first moved in, and it definitely got away from me), a post giving tips to new home-buyers who are self-employed, and then I want to do a tour of the new house when everything is moved in! I am really excited to do these posts, and I cannot wait for you to read them!
My goal for this blog is to focus more on more personal topics that I am interested in. I *love* this business, and I love editing, but I am currently feeling a bit burned out with this blog. It requires a balance, and I don’t think I’ve done a great job with that. I’m always afraid that if I talk too much about personal things, the blog will lose its focus. However, I’ve been encouraged by my Mastermind group to talk more about what I want to talk about. They insist that the burnout will fade, so I’m going to give this a try. We’ll see how this goes! Until then, friends, keep us in your prayers for a smooth closing and a safe move!
[…] was to pay off all of our debt and then pursue buying a house in the spring. But, like I said in my last post, sometimes plans change! I love our townhome, it was a great first house, and I will never forget […]
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