Under Contract

After 8 months on the market, approximately 30 showings, 5 open houses and an almost 15% reduction from our original asking price… “Under contract” are two of the most beautiful words I have heard in a long time. Well, at least since almost 3 weeks ago when our realtor called to say “you have an offer!”

It’s true! I have been excited to share this wonderful news in our life, however wanted to get through the attorney review period, inspection, appraisal, etc. to be sure that things still seemed to be on track before letting you know that there is a very high probability that four weeks from today we will be closing on the sale of our current home and the purchase of our dream home!

It feels positively surreal after working so hard for all this time to keep our house “show ready” as much as possible, while keeping faith that someone might finally find our house has enough of what they are looking for to want to make it their home. 

What will hopefully become the happy ending to this part of our family’s story began on Tuesday, May 31.  We got a call for a showing the next day around 11:30 a.m. Since that is usually Abby’s lunchtime and some days even her nap time already, we made plans to go to lunch with a friend so that afterwards I could bring Abby right back home and put her down for a nap. 

We had a great time visiting with our friend over lunch, dropped her off and then headed back to our house as planned. Abby went to sleep almost immediately. At that point it was about 12:30 p.m. and I was contemplating hopping in the shower, since Abby and I had picked up our friend not long after I had taken a step aerobics class that morning and didn’t have time to get one in before lunch. However, as some of you know I get distracted pretty easily and this is one day/time in my life when that was a very good thing, as around 1:00 p.m. I got a call that the potential buyer wanted to come back and see it again “now!”

I was in shock! In eight months this was only the third time that a buyer had wanted to return to see our house a second time. It had never happened the same day as the first showing and certainly not less than two hours later! I said “of course” tell the buyer and realtor to come on over, however I let them know that our toddler was sleeping and if it was okay, I would prefer they not go in our children’s bedroom this time. They understood and honored my request.

Likewise, they knew, unlike earlier that day during their first visit, that I would be home and they didn’t seem to mind that either. It was nice to meet our potential buyer and I got a good vibe from this person right away. I tried to stay out of their way, but also let them know I was glad to answer any questions they might have. They did have a few and it was interesting to get a glimpse of who could possible live here if and when we were able to sell our house and buy the one we have had a contingent contract on for the past eight months. 

At one point while the potential buyer and realtor were there looking around I was trying to give them some space. I was standing out of their way in our living room when the buyer entered our foyer and stood there, with their back to the front door and their body facing the staircase leading up to our second floor.  From that vantage point you can easily look into our dining room which leads to our kitchen to the left, as well as our living room (where I was) to the  right. At that moment the buyer seemed be surveying everything on the first floor when they turned to me and told me how much they loved our house. 

I don’t recall the buyer’s exact words, but the gist of what they were saying was how much they appreciate all the work that we have done to take care of and make our house so nice. I said “thank you” and definitely had a good feeling about this buyer, but knew better than to get my hopes up too much, as the other two buyers that had returned for second visits had opted to buy bigger houses that “needed work,” as opposed to our 2 bedroom with lots of updates. 

That interchange with the buyer meant a lot to me, as though at that point we probably would have sold our house to anyone willing to make a reasonable offer, my hope and dream has always been that the next owner(s) would genuinely appreciate everything we put into it over the past 8 years, including completely remodeling our kitchen and basement. I got the sense that afternoon that this potential buyer could grow to love our home as much as we do now and that they could be very happy here. 

The next evening (Thursday, June 2), we got “the call” that in the preceding weeks we had started to believe might never come, at least not in time for us to still be able to buy the house that motivated us to try to sell ours in this crazy real estate market. The buyer who had come through twice the day before had decided to make an offer! They actually want to buy and live in our home! 

From there we were able to negotiate the purchase price, terms and details of the contract through our realtors, which was a nice change after many months of dealing more directly with the family we have been under contract with who are selling “buy owner.” We really like the family that we are buying our new house from, but it is never easy to have to do business with friends/acquaintances, especially when it is a real estate deal.   

So now, after all this time, we have gone from hoping, wishing and praying that “our buyer” would walk through our door one day, to the wonderful and overwhelming reality that we are moving! We have done a lot to prepare over the past few weeks and still have our work cut out for us in the days to come. Packing and getting ready to transition our life from our first house to the one we intend to spend the rest of our lives in (at least until we retire) is exciting, scary and bittersweet. I am sure I will have more thoughts about this in the near future and will allow myself breaks from packing and organizing to share some about this experience here. 

Thank you for all of your support, positive thoughts, prayers and encouragement on this journey to try to sell our home in effort to get to buy and live in our dream home! It is hard for us to believe at times that this is really happening. We do think this is going to work out though and have faith that this time next month we will be living in (and I will be blogging from) a new location (still in our current neighborhood), in a place that I hope to get to make many wonderful new memories with my family in the years to come!