House Update

Back in mid June, we decided to consider looking for a larger home.  I posted about it here and here.  We had decided to put an offer on the home I mentioned in the 2nd post. It is a short sale and our realtor told us that sometimes, the price can go UP from the asking price depending on what the bank will accept.  That scared us off a little and we decided to wait and try to get our financing in order. We finally thought we had everything figured out (but not done) and decided to put in an offer.   However, we found out that two days earlier, on July 19th, someone else put a contract on it. 

Needless to say, we were bummed.  But we went ahead and started the process of getting the finance process started. I kept praying all along that if that house was supposed to be ours that it would come back on the market and we would get a chance to put an offer on it.

In the meantime, we continued to look at a number of homes that are on the market, but none of them had a layout that really fit our needs.  We also started investigating a home that we knew had been for sale earlier in the year, but no longer was on the market.  We discovered that it had been foreclosed and would be going on the market at the end of August.  Since this home is also in our neighborhood, we would drive by it regularly hoping to meet the current homeowner and ask for a tour.  We were finally able to tour it this past weekend. 

After walking through it, at first we weren't sure it would really meet our needs.  But we sat down, drew out a floor plan and figured out how it would work for us.  We just needed to wait until the current owner moved out.  In the mean time, we continued to look at other homes. 

Last night, we saw a 3rd home in our neighborhood that is out of our price range, but we felt it was overpriced and would eventually come down into our range.  However, after walking through it, we decided that it just wasn't a fit for our needs. 

We re-iterated our interest in the home from the earlier post to our realtor.  She had told us that it is not unusual for contracts on short sales to fall through.  She promised to call the realtor today and talk to her about a backup offer.

When she called today, she discovered that the realtor was getting ready to re-list the house.  The original contract fell through!!!!! And the original accepted offer was for LESS than the asking price!Our realtor asked her NOT to re-list it yet as she had a buyer ready to put a contract on it.  Needless to say, CP and I were both very excited.  We asked for one more walk-through tomorrow with the kids and the offer will be signed after the walk-through. 
On top of that, the key to the financing (which we had been told could take up to three weeks) came in the mail today - one week after we sent in the paperwork! 
God is such a God of details!  And also of timing.

If we had put the offer in on the house back in late June, we might have been close to moving.  Not something we needed to be worried about right now with Dad in the hospital.  As it is, he can come home and be halfway through his recovery before we have to move. 

And oh yeah, July 19th, the day the house went under contract the first time - is my Birthday.  God gave me a special birthday present by tying up the house until we could put an offer on it!