The Story of Our Move…{part 2}

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{alternatively titled: Trying to Sell Your House While Going on a Week-Long Vacation is NOT Recommended}

If you are just tuning in, you might want to read the first part of our moving story here {I promise, it’s fun!}.

New Year’s Eve we were left with the decision of WHAT our next step was going to be. We hadn’t planned on moving in any way, shape or form. Our house needed to be worked on so we could put it on the market, as it wasn’t already. After Rick and I talked and prayed about it, we had a peace about it and called our realtor back and started the process of contract negotiations with the seller.

The process went back and forth for ten days ~ we made an offer, he countered, we countered, he countered and on January 10th we had an official contract on his house, with plans to close at the end of February. Gulp.

Two days later, on a Wednesday, I met with our realtor over lunch to talk about what we needed to do to have our house ready to show and sell. We put together a punch list of all the things that would be key to making it ‘pop’ a bit, decided on a listing price and then she hit me with some news ~ she already had a showing scheduled.

On Saturday.

Rick somehow managed to take the next two days off from work and he and I worked furiously to get the house ready for showing. We repainted much of our upstairs, repainted doors and trim, trimmed bushes/gardens, caulked, washed ALL of our carpets, cleaned, scrubbed, patched and fell asleep exhausted on Friday night.  The house was officially listed and in the system on January 15th.

Meanwhile, our house was getting talked up at the office and more showings were scheduled for that weekend also. I baked bread and cookies as a bribe for the potential buyers. Despite multiple showings for several of the couples, no one seemed to be quite ready to commit. Everyone liked it, but no one would take the first step and make an offer.

Did I mention that we already had planned a week-long cruise, just Rick and I, and were planning to leave the following weekend on the 22nd?

The week prior to our leaving I was clearing out of the house for showings, trying to hide our suitcases that I was packing, getting things ready for my mom who was watching the kids for the following week. And praying that we would have things settled before we left.

That week we also ran into a little snafu with the new house. Our seller had been transferred, and part of his transfer included a moving package with his company. There was a possibility that he could lose the package if we didn’t close sooner ~ the sooner the better. 

This change put us in a difficult position since we had to make a decision on dropping the contract and taking our house off the market or staying on the track we were on and possibly owning two houses at the same time. Rick and I kept praying and talking about it and still had a peace about the entire process.

We set a new closing date of January 31st on the new house, but at that point the bank wasn’t sure if the paperwork could be worked on and turned around in that short of a timeframe {at that point a little over a week}. We also realized there would be another issue. We weren’t set to return from our cruise until late on the 31st and wouldn’t be able to be at the signing. That began another round of paperwork as we turned over our power of attorney to our real estate agent so that she could purchase the house for us while we were gone.

I scrambled all week to get paperwork signed, more cleaning and packing done, and Rick and I prepared to leave the country on Saturday the 22nd. We had no idea what would happen while we were gone because there was a possibility that we could still lose the contract on the new house if the company changed the transfer package before the 31st. 

As we backed out of our driveway that Saturday we left not knowing if we would have contracts on either of our houses, own two houses at once or WHAT would happen. Our internet connection and phone service were going to be extremely limited over the next nine days, and the vacation that we had thought would be a relaxing time suddenly had us sitting and wondering what would happen while we were gone.

{to be continued}