Hunting for Home

If you missed the end of last week, you might be a little confused by today's post! You can go back and read the fuller versions of the stories if you'd like, but the quick version is that I shared a life update for our household: we're leaving our jobs at WillowBridge. I also shared on Friday that the first piece of the next season that God led us to know was where we would be going to church. You might think that the next piece would be about a job, but it's not. (It actually was the next piece we started exploring and having conversations with others about, but it was not the next answered question.)

Because, you see, one of the tricky parts of our job is that when we leave the work portion of it, we also lose our home. The perils of living and working in the same space, right? In order to leave, we had to have a place to go.

Since we knew the general area where we wanted to live, we started looking online for options. 

There weren't many. At the time we began looking, there were nine houses for sale. Three were major fixer uppers, and while you know that we do enjoy a good project, this is not the time in our lives when we have the capacity for a major project. Three were so far out of our price range that we couldn't even look at the listings. And three were in the ballpark. (Even though everyone's ballparks have been stretched by current housing market prices, of course.)

We asked our friends if they could recommend any real estate agents for us to work with, and they gave us a name. We called her and she was able to work with us right away. I sent her the three listings we'd found that looked like good options and were in our general price range. We set up an appointment to meet with her on a Tuesday, and the weekend before we went, Ryan told me one of the houses we sent her showed that it had sold.

So the morning of our house hunting adventure, I texted the agent to confirm we were still meeting, and she told me we would be seeing all three houses that day. I guess the one hadn't sold after all! What a fun surprise! 

Ryan and I drove into town and met her at the first house on the agenda. It was in a really cozy area that reminded me a lot of the area where we had lived in Kokomo. This house had a basement, which was high on my list and hard to come by. We weren't sure about the house other than the basement. Some things in the pictures had looked a little strange. But we thought it was worth a look. We rolled up in front of the house and officially met our new real estate friend for the first time in person.

As we exchanged pleasantries, a gentleman walked out of the house. We learned he was the listing agent and had stopped by to open the house for us. He also had mentioned that the house had received an offer just that morning. We were still welcome to look if we wanted, and we could make an offer, but we just needed to know that another offer existed.

We walked through the house and admired the obvious love that had been put into making it a home. I promptly fell in love with the finished basement, but I told Ryan that for as much as I loved that space, the house just didn't feel like home. I didn't think this was it. He agreed. Nice, but not for us. We said we hoped it went well for the people who had made the offer, and in less than ten minutes, we were out the door and on to the next house.

We didn't have far to go, actually. It was in the same neighborhood! This house was a new build, and it was the one we thought had sold. We'd only seen pictures of the outside, since the inside wasn't constructed at the time of the listing. We pulled up in front of house #2 and walked through the front door.

I hadn't even left the main living area, before I knew I was in in big trouble. I had fallen completely in love with that house. Never mind the stickers on the windows and the paper covering the floor. Never mind the chilly temps and imaginary light fixtures yet to be installed. I was so busy trying to shove my feelings down inside that I barely noticed Ryan seemed to be struggling with the same feelings of house-infatuation that I had. Questions tumbled out of our mouths and Amie fired off text after text to the listing agent to find answers. Ryan and I ran from room to room, already imagining where we would put our furniture. 

We were there over an hour, and at the end of the time, I looked at Amie and said, "I didn't mean to love it this much."

We had one more house to see, and online, house #3 had been the one to beat. It had been the one we hoped upon hope would not sell until we got there to see it. So we all piled into our cars and headed across town to see this house.

The house was every bit as lovely in person as it had been online. The previous owners had built a newer, bigger home, and they were already living in it, so the space was empty and ready for our imaginations to work. We walked all around, imagining and dreaming, and there were things we really loved about that house. (The shower in the master was pretty much amazing.) But the house was so big. Much bigger than we realized from the listing. We knew we would have to buy significant amounts of furniture just to fill the rooms. And the master, though beautiful, was very small. We would have to cover a window just to put our bed in the room. And even though the house had been well-loved and remodeled, there were some big ticket replacements looming in the not-too-distant future. 

We parted ways with Amie that day and began driving back home. We felt like we were living an episode of House Hunters. What would it be? One, two, or three?

Before we even got back home, we knew that the new build was the one for us. We had prayed SO specifically that if and when the Lord had a home for us, we would know it. We prayed that we would feel it was home the moment we walked through the door. And we both knew it without a doubt as soon as we walked inside house #2. 

We also knew that the way the market is right now, if we had an interest, we better say so IMMEDIATELY. So while we were yet driving home, we called Amie and told her we wanted to make an offer on the house. 

She took all the information, sent us what we needed to complete online, and submitted the offer for us. She said they would let us know within 24 hours.

And as we kicked back to wait and pray, she called again.

Someone else had placed an offer on the house sometime between the time we visited it and the end of the day.