starting 2016 with a bang

Why not start 2016 off with a move to a different city?  We had talked back and forth a few times about moving back home over the course of the last couple years.  Our last conversation was that we would move back by the time Barrett was 5 years old and ready for school.  But then we had a conversation the weekend after Christmas and decided the time was now.  Not gonna lie, it was hard for me to wrap my brain around it.  I love living here.  I love the friends I've made, the gym I teach at and the relationships made through that, Costco, and so many other things that this big city has to offer.  But for Matt, he goes to work M-F and then has weekends off.  He doesn't have those days off during the week like I do to make relationships and ties to this city.  So I totally get it, and I'm totally supportive of moving home, and it's happening...quickly!

We met with our realtor the week after we had our conversation to see what her thoughts were.  We wanted to see when she thought would be a good time to sell.  To our surprise, she said that right now would be best.  Right now?! Apparently it's been a really great selling Winter, and since demand is high but supply is low, we would probably sell fairly quickly and get a good offer.  She wanted to get us on before the Spring selling season started.  So I spent a week and a half getting things packed in boxes and the house cleaned, organized, and ready to show!

Our house listed on Thursday evening (1/21), and we had a showing already scheduled for the next day just hours after we listed.  WHAT?! My anxiety was sky-high.  I couldn't believe it.  I wanted the whole process to go slowly so I could ease my brain into it, but that didn't happen. We had another one pop up for Saturday, and two for Sunday!  We got some great feedback from the showings, but no offers yet.  It was a slow next week of no showings, which was nerve-wrecking, but a request popped up Thursday evening for Friday morning (who ended up being the ones who put in an offer!), and one for Sunday evening.  Showing your home is quite exhausting.  Making sure it's in tip top shape every single time you leave the house just in case one pops up.  One of our showings only gave us an hour notice!  We had to get Jax up to our mom's houses so he wouldn't be stressed with the showings and then lug Barrett out of the house somewhere for an hour while it showed.  Our first showing, Jax was still home, so I took both boys to Petsmart for the evening to look at all the animals and walk around :).

We had been looking at houses in Lafayette, but weren't sure if we'd be able to time it out right.  We had no clue how quickly we'd sell and where we would live if we sold before we bought.  It was quite stressful.  We found a house we really liked, but when we went up to see it we found out it had an accepted offer on it placed the day before.  Boo!  We saw a couple others, but didn't love them.  We saw a few more, and found another we really liked.  A house we wanted to see had an offer pending that popped up that morning, so it was out.  Man, houses are flying!  We saw the one we liked and ended up loving it even more.  It was definitely my #1.  We saw a few more houses through the week/weekend and found another one that we both really liked.  We got more info on it, and received info that it had a pending offer as of the day before even though it'd been on the market for 3 months! Grr. This was just frustrating.  So we were back to the other house we loved.  We were still looking for other homes, because this one already had an offer on it but it was confintgent on the buyers selling their home.  Our realtor advised us that we should sell our home first, then make an offer if we still wanted it.

Once we were noticing the trend of how quickly houses were going, we knew we had to jump on this one.  It was such a perfect match for us.  Close to the interstate but out in the woods by the creek, close to our moms, beautiful area, gorgeous house we could grow in to, community park/pool, etc.  We got pre-approved with our bank just in case.  But now we just had to wait on an offer for our house and hope that no one else put another offer on this home.

We went back up to look at some houses on Saturday, and that evening got a call as we were driving around looking at other houses that we....had an offer!! Woohoo!!  It ended up being a great offer, nearly our asking price, and we said YES!  We were SO excited! Our house sold in 9 days! (8.5 to be exact :) )  Next step...put an offer on the other house!

We scheduled a second showing for Sunday morning to go see it one more time.  We got the call it was approved and had to leave church early.  We headed up north with Barrett.  About 15 minutes into the drive, he got sick all over the backseat :(.  Great timing, bud.  We got him all cleaned up and continued our trek (with a naked baby in the back haha).  We made it to the showing 15 minutes before it was over and took another look around.  We still loved it and felt like it was the right move.  We met at the park nearby and went over our offer with our realtor and sent it off! We set the deadline to that night by 9 pm so we could hear back before they could get anymore offers (they had multiple showings that weekend), but they said they couldn't get back until the next day by 1 pm.  Ugh.  We unhappily agreed and just waited.  We were so nervous!  And annoyed that they may have just been waiting on more offers to come in.

Matt came home on his lunch break so we could receive the response together.  1 o'clock hit and still nothing,  We got an email at 1:06 pm. Boo.  But at least it was a counter offer! They barely budged on the price, but we made a plan, wrote a counter, and sent it right back.  We gave them until the next day (Tuesday) at noon, but although we fully expected them to take the whole time they wrote a counter back that night around 8 pm!  We looked it over and decided if we really wanted to house we needed to go for it.  We sent back and accepted offer that night! Woohoo!!

So now we wait for appraisals and inspections on both homes.  Cross fingers for good news both ways!  The plan is to close on both homes AND move on the same day.  Yikes!