God's Provision: Our Home Story, The Conclusion

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

One morning, my grandmother called and asked if she could stop by to give me something.  This is the grandmother who from the time I was a baby has sent me birthday and Christmas cards with red-haired girls on them.  Never mind that they are a rarity, she can find them and it has long been a joke between us.  When I opened the door, she handed me a dish brush with a painted face and red bristles.  “For your new house,” she said.  “By faith.”

The next morning  we went to see House C.  It was an older 2-story home on a quiet road and situated on 1½ acres of land.  There were three bedrooms and an extra room (den? playroom?) upstairs.  The older couple who owned the home had kept it immaculate, but their daughters who were selling the home wanted more than what the home was worth.  We discussed our options and decided to place an offer below the asking price.  Right there in the living room, though, Sharon said, “Are you still interested in House B?  I know the seller cannot afford to live there much longer and I’m going to attempt to contact her and see if she is interested in selling again?” 

We placed the offer on House C on Saturday morning, and then waited through an agonizing weekend to hear word.  On Monday evening, Sharon called and said the daughters were offended by our low offer and wanted to hold out for the asking price.  (The home is still on the market today.)  But the seller of House B was willing to negotiate again.  We didn’t have time to be disappointed about House C because  things began to move quickly from here.  Sharon talked to the seller and found out what she needed.  We got our income tax refund (putting us in a much better financial state than where we had been in November) and began to talk details with our mortgage broker, Norman. 

When God said yes, there was no doubt as things began to fall into place.  On Monday, February 21^st, we all gathered in the real estate office—the seller, Sharon, Brian and me (and Alaine)—and we signed a contract on House B.  The next few months were a crazy conglomeration of days as we had home inspections, signed paperwork for the bank, and set up utilities all while I continued to teach school and keep up with the house…and pack.  Brian started the spring season at work which is the busiest of the year. 

Posing in the side yard (before the lawn was cut!)

We were nervous through the entire process because it was such a huge step.  Whenever we had questions (or I began to panic), Norman was quick to e-mail or return our calls.  He made the process from contract to settlement smooth, and we felt very taken care of.  He and Brian developed a great working relationship as they talked kids almost as much as they talked money.  

We signed the final papers making the house ours on April 18, 2011, exactly eight weeks after we signed the contract and two years after our home search began!  The home and property appraised for over $30,000 more than what we paid, another sign of God’s hand. 

We had the luxury of two weeks between closing and the end of our lease on our townhouse so we moved slowly.  Friends brought dinner to help on those long evenings of moving.  Other friends gave us paper products so I wouldn’t have to wash or unpack dishes.  Different family members took the kids to their houses to play while Brian and I worked to clean the new house or drive over loads of boxes. 

Mowing his own grass!

Last Saturday afternoon, we took a break from moving to eat lunch at McDonald’s.  We ordered, dispersed the food, and prayed before eating.  A few minutes into the meal, a woman walked up to our table.  I was afraid she was going to complain about the kids being loud because we had noticed her watching us.  Instead, she tucked a twenty dollar bill in my hand and said, “The Lord wanted me to give this to you.  When I saw you say the blessing over your food, that was confirmation.”  Then she walked out of the building and drove away. 

We were reminded of the Lord’s provision that day. Looking back we can see the Lord’s provision through every step of this journey—in the choosing of real estate agent and mortgage broker, in saving our home for us until we had enough money saved, in the people surrounding us who helped and encouraged and prayed.  We thank Him today and we thank Him always. 

God's Provision: Our Home Story, Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

We gave house hunting a break while we settled into life with a family of seven, but by October, we were back in the game.  One day in mid-November, Brian took the day off and we went on a morning house hunting blitz.  The night before our trek, I asked several people to pray for us.  I was again dreading the hunting part, and though we had been very private about our search thus far, I wanted support from the Body of Christ before we headed out this time. 

We looked at one house that was okay, another two that were not, and then we walked in House B.  We had been warned that the house was occupied and might be a bit messy, but we were surprised to find it tidy and clean.  It had an open floor plan, large bedrooms, two bathrooms, and it sat on a 2-acre plot of land.  The price was just at the upper end of our price range, but Sharon said we could easily offer less.  We were taking this as God’s yes.   We sat right there in the living room and discussed how to proceed.  We went home for the afternoon, and then met back in the real estate office to sign a contract for an offer on the house. 

What followed was a week of highs and lows.  The seller countered our offer and then we countered her counter.  It seemed as though life revolved around waiting for the telephone to ring.  She countered again and we countered her counter again.  Six days after our original offer, we got word that she accepted.  We told the kids at dinner and we were all so excited we could hardly eat!  It was a Thursday and we were waiting to hear details of when to set up the inspections for the following week, but details never came.  A phone call from Sharon revealed that while the seller verbally accepted our offer, she never signed the contract and now she was having “seller’s jitters.”  We prayed with fervor.  We asked that the Lord’s will be done. 

Thanksgiving Day was a little emotional as we waited to hear.  At our Thanksgiving meal, each person wrote something they were thankful for on a leaf and attached it to the thankful tree.  I wrote “our new home” and prayed that it would be so.  On the following dreary Tuesday, Brian called me in the afternoon.  Sharon had called and told him that not only was the seller not going to sign the contract but she was pulling the house from the market.  The clouds matched my mood and my tears competed with the rain drops.  God was giving us another clear no.

We struggled hard that time.  We wondered why God had taken us so far before saying no.  We wondered why we would find a home that seemed so perfect and yet have it taken away.  We vacillated between anger and disappointment and discouragement.  Yet somehow we were still thankful.  Knowing that we had prayed for God to give us a clear yes or no took the pressure off of us and reminded us that it was all in His hands.  If House B wasn’t the one, there must be something better for us. 

With Christmas upon us, we gave house hunting a long intentional rest.  We needed emotional rest and we were too busy with holiday preparations to spend time searching anyway.  In late January 2011, we geared up again.  Brian was in his seasonal break from work so we had a lot of time to devote to walking through houses.  It seemed like we were doomed to repeat the cycle again.  Online pictures looked great, but in person (in house?) things were in terrible shape.  We walked through homes with broken windows and missing (copper) pipes and leaky roofs.  Though some homes were workable, others were most definitely not and we began to wonder if for now this was God’s clear no to buying a house at all.  Sharon was a bit more optimistic.  One day after a discouraging round of house shopping, she said, “There is a house out there for you somewhere.  We just need to find it.”

 

The Conclusion

God's Provision: Our Home Story, Part 2

Part 1

About nine months in to our home search, we found out we were expecting a new baby.  Not only were we discouraged about finding a home, now we felt desperate.  We knew that with a few months, we were going to need to either find a new home or  figure out a way to add a fourth child into the kids’ bedroom or find a place for all our ‘stuff’ so we could open up our third bedroom.  It was a daunting  but necessary task.  Once I emerged from the haze of morning sickness, we began calling Sharon again to set up home showings.  
Sharon was a wonderful family-friendly real estate agent, never minding when the kids tagged along (which was most of the time).  The kids were troopers and loved exploring the nooks and crannies of any space we wandered, but I really hated the home-looking process.   I dreaded the days where we drove around, visiting four or five homes at a time.

February 2010

In April 2010, a year into our quest, we went to see a House A.  The home was workable, but we didn’t think so at first.  We went to look on a Monday morning on our way to my ultrasound to find out whether we were having a boy or girl.  We kind of liked it, but the bedrooms were small and the dining area was part of the family room.  The house sat on about half an acre and had a open backyard.  We left the property and went on to our day’s main event.  We found out that our tiny babe was a girl—our Alaine.  All week, we discussed the house and tried to decide whether to proceed.  By Saturday, we decided that with a bit of work, we could make the home our own.  We e-mailed Sharon and told her we wanted to make an offer.  However, we found out that just the night before, the house had gone under contract with another buyer. 

The following Saturday, we were looking at yet another house when Sharon mentioned that House A was already back on the market and with a bit of digging, we found out that the septic system had failed an inspection, meaning repairs were needed that were beyond our budget.  God had given us our clear no.

For several months, we even thought that an investor was going to buy House A to do the repairs and sell it back to us, but he kept hitting road blocks-- a clear no.

September 2010

Through much of our house-hunting, we kept quiet about it.  We are private people and so we kept this aspect of our lives private.  I didn’t mention it on my blog and only a few people (my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, a close friend) knew we were looking, but no one really knew the extent of our search.  I think we were afraid to get anyone’s hopes up because the search was such a roller coaster ride for us. 

We held off as long as possible, but a little over three weeks before Alaine was due, we moved Benjamin into the “big kids’ room.”  He had been sleeping on a mattress in our room so we moved that into his “new” room since there wasn’t room for another bed.  We bought new matching bedding for all of the kids so that the room seemed special, if a bit cramped.  Three days (not weeks) later, on September 1, 2010, Alaine was born and took up residence in the master bedroom. 

Part 3
The Conclusion

God's Provision: Our Home Story, Part 1

I have been intending to share this story of our home-buying experience  for weeks now.  I think it will be a wonderful story for my children to look back on and I pray it will be an inspiration  and testimony of God's greatness to someone else.  However, as I tend to be long winded and it was such a daunting task,  I decided to wait ...until this last intensive week of moving. Makes sense, right?  (In my defense, writing is a stress reliever for me.)  

Disclaimer:  I said I was long-winded so be prepared for a few "To be continued-s."  

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The path to owning our first home could only be described as a journey.  The journey was winding and long, discouraging and thrilling with multiple starts and stops.  When we began, we could not have imagined the end results or what it took to get there. 

May 2009

Our story began in April of 2009.  We had started to outgrow our 3-bedroom townhouse.  Our four kids were six, four, two and seven months old.  Our smallest bedroom was serving as a storage room so we had three kids in a mid-sized bedroom and the baby (Benjamin) shared a room with us.  We didn’t feel financially ready to buy a home, but we knew we needed something bigger so we began a tentative search for homes online.  We found one that seemed reasonably priced with enough space on a quiet street with a small yard where the kids could play.  During our Saturday wanderings that week, we decided to drive by since the house was unoccupied.  When we pulled up in front of the house, we noticed a car was already parked in the driveway.

May 2009

A quick walk-through of the house was real eye-opener. It had no heating system whatsoever and was not even built according to code, but the experience introduced us to our real estate agent, Sharon (whose car was parked in the driveway).  In the kitchen of this wreck of a house, she took the time to find out what we were looking for, how many bedrooms we needed, and asked our price range.  

Over the months, we narrowed down what was important to us in a home.  When we began, we thought we knew what we wanted, but walking through house after house after house helped us determine what would work for us.  We needed at least three bedrooms—a master bedroom, a boys’ room, and girls’ room.  We needed a separate dining room or a large dining area to hold our large table.  We wanted a house out of town with its own well and septic.  We wanted a home with a yard for the kids to play.  It didn’t have to be huge, but we wanted them to have room to move. 

The problem was we only felt comfortable paying a certain amount per month for our mortgage.  We were pre-approved for a bigger loan, but we didn’t want to take it.  This self-imposed price range made our search difficult because most of the homes we looked at were either too small or in terrible condition.  Imagine homes with broken windows, no appliances, birds’ nests in the eaves (or dead birds in the corner), holes in the walls, or words painted on the doorposts.  We saw it all.  We learned that pictures on the internet are no indication of the actual condition of a property.  Photographers have quite a way of finding the angle that eliminates the ugly parts of a room.  If by chance, a well-maintained home at a reasonable price came through the system, it usually got snatched up before we had a moment to go see it. 

October 2009

We became so discouraged that periodically, we stopped house hunting altogether.  The car Brian was using to drive back and forth to work was on its last leg and he had the opportunity to buy a used truck at a fabulous price in October 2009.  We paid cash to avoid a car payment, but that cut into our savings.  We kept pinching pennies and kept putting money slowly back into our account, but we learned to make do with our current home and figured out ways to make the space work for us.

It was hard when we would get our hopes up.  Sometimes a house would make us too excited.  We’d find it in the newspaper and talk about its potential.  We’d drool over the pictures or the square footage or the fenced-in yard.  Sometimes just walking onto the property was enough to dash our hopes.  Other times, we’d still be in love after a walk-through, but the price would be just a bit out of range or the home needed a tad too much work.  Still other times, the home would go under contract right as we prepared to make an offer.  Emotionally, it began to take its toll.  We began to pray that the Lord would make it very clear to us—that if a home was not for us, there would be a clear no and if it was for us, there would be no mistaking it. 

Part 2 
Part 3
The Conclusion