House

Quite some time ago, I thought I wanted to try to write for a commercial blog. I was wrong, but I did write something to submit in the process. Since we are very close to the three year anniversary of selling our San Antonio home, I'm going to share this with you. And later in the month tell you the real story of buying and selling that house. (Oh my word. It's just silly.) Here's the prompt I used:

"Write a 500 word or less piece about falling in love with a home that you can't afford."
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My husband got a new job, in a new city, in a new state. It was time for our family to move.

We had three days in our new town to find a home. We must have looked at a bazillion houses. It was overwhelming and exhausting. The one we really, really liked was so much more than we ever thought we could have. It was light and airy and open. It had a big yard. It was on a cul-de-sac. It had a game room. It was in the right school district. The commute time for work was very short.

We stood in the street looking at it, trying to see ourselves living there. One of the neighbors came up to us and said, “You’ll love it here. The neighbors are great.” And we believed her.

But it was out of our price range.

That was when our realtor did what she did so very well. She made a chart showing our list of wants and a list of the houses we liked and how they fit our wants. Guess which house had the most matches? She showed us how an extra $20,000 on the price would mean about an extra $100 a month in payments.

But even adding that extra $20,000 to what we could afford kept us way under the asking price. We were nervous. What if the seller rejected our offer? What if they just laughed and turned our offer away?

A few hours before we were supposed to be at the airport, our hunting trip over, we were sitting in our realtor’s car listening to her bargain with the seller. I can’t even describe the feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Finally, after a few compromises on both our parts, we reached an agreement. We were able to get them down to what we could afford (ok, kind of afford-we’d have to stretch the budget a bit, but it was worth it.)

Then I cried. What a huge relief.
We moved in and loved it. Loved the house. Loved the schools. Loved the commute. Loved the neighbors.
A few years later, another change came-another relocation. And we had to sell our wonderful home.

Sadly, we cleaned & painted, fixed up the landscaping, decorated & staged. While doing all that, I relaxed. I started to feel that the wonderful building that had been our home wasn’t ours anymore. It was waiting for someone else.

We put it on the market.

I got a call one day letting me know I had a showing in 15 minutes. My three year old and I went out for a walk. A long walk.

When we came home, we met the family looking at the house. I said hello and, “You’ll love it here. The neighbors are great.”

A couple of days later, we had an offer.

And they love it there.

The neighbors are great.