For everything there is a season.....

So, to say our life is a little busy right now is QUITE the understatement....house hunting is a full time job in itself, not to mention all the paper associated with putting in an offer, getting it accepted, finalizing the sale of our home...very overwhelming.

Well - although the craziest is no where near slowing down...we have sold our house and have an accepted offer on our new house. The house buying process has ended up NOTHING like we imagined, but as always God's plans are bigger and better. We really prayed about the right time to put the house on the market and that He would put us in the right house to hopefully raise our family. I have also been praying for our future neighbors and that God would use us to minister to whatever community we end up in.

Our house sold in 3.5 weeks with a closing date on May 20th, so the minute we had an executed contract we jumped on the house hunting. In fact, our contract with the sale of our home occured at 9 PM on a Monday and by Wednesday of the same week, we put in an offer on what we thought was "the house". Unfortunately, within the second day that house was on the market, it also had 2 other offers and the sellers accepted one of the other offers. Its ok, just means it wasnt meant to be.

We have been looking at homes in the Spring Branch area for the last two years, so we knew exactly the areas we were willing to consider based on the feel of the street, school zonings, market value of homes etc. (I actually have a map of the area -- just ask one of my bible study girls). You know, I thought I was a thorough researching, but Alex is even more so. He is so great about thinking through the whole plan and working out all details etc. I can't tell you how many times we have been discussing prices, expectations etc with our realtor, inspector, general contractor etc where they make a comment about how well Alex understands what things cost and doesnt come into a discussion with some absurd expectation. I love that about him.

Anyways, the area we love happens to be loved by like a million other people, so if a good house comes on the market, it is off the market within 10 days, usually having received multiple offers and usually earning above asking price which is unheard of right now in real estate. Don't believe, look on www.har.com and search Spring Branch. Check out how many homes are listed that are not already Sale Pending or Pending Continue to Show.

We knew we had to be aggressive with our house hunt and be ready to make a competitive offer. Well after "the house" feel through, every house we looked at was either not the right match or accepted a contract with someone else shortly after we looked at the house. Sellers should pay us just to look at their home, because every home we would look at would get an offer from someone else. We began to wonder where God was taking all this...there were literally NO homes in the neighborhood we liked, within our price range, size requirements and we were VERY flexible.

Well there was one house on thet market that needed some TLC and had no pictures of the inside on HAR which is usually a scary sign. Seeing as how there was NOTHING else, we scheduled an appt to go see the house and to our surprise, the bones were GREAT, it had just been cosmetically neglected. We had a general contractor meet us at the house to see if we could make the necessary reonvations within our budget to make it worth investing in this home. After all the doors God had been shutting, we assumed that this house would be too far gone and that God would close this door as well. Maybe God wanted us to spend a year homeless, we didnt know. To our surprise, the renovations are within our budget and the bones of the house are great! Inspection went through smoothly and our option period ended yesterday. So...we have a house, in our FAVORITE neighborhood, zoned to great schools. This house is actually slightly bigger than we had been considering and also has a GREAT backyard and hallelujah, has NO POOL!! Buying a 30 year old pool is a little scary, and pools are too much maintenance.

So now the real fun begins...we are moving into my parents condo during the renovations and living like hobos as I like to say ... we will have a mattress, two chairs and tv trays for 4 months. :) All our furniture in the house gets packed up and sent off to storage the weekend of teh 14th and we close on the sale of our house and the purchase of the new house on May 20th. In the meantime, between work and packing, we have to pick out everything with the General Contractor for the new house, as they want to have everything ordered so they can start demo and renovations immediately. We should hopefully be in the house by end of September God-willing. :)

Good bye to our first home as a married couple....

Hello new house with endless possibilities and dreams of our future.....

Front Yard

Back Yard

You know that I will be posting before and afters of the house once everything is done...in the meantime, all two of my readers will just have to wait.

Until next time, whenever that may be.

PS - 4 weeks until Vegas. :)