More House Hunting Adventures

More House Hunting Adventures - picture of exterior of modern one-story home

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Good morning, Thriftaholics!  In case you’re out of the loop, Greg took a job in a town about 30 minutes away.  And since Greg has to be “on call” for work a few days a week, we have to move.  We put our house on the market a few weeks ago, and we had several showings almost immediately.  In the meantime, we started looking at tons of houses in our new area. We found several houses that we liked and many that were awful.  But, regardless, we didn’t want to move forward with anything until we had a feel for when our house might sell.  And, since we had only been on the market a few days, we weren’t expecting anything to happen quite yet.

Then, after six days on the market, we got the news that someone may be putting an offer on our home.

So we waited…..

And waited some more.  Unfortunately, the couple that wanted our house chose to follow through with an offer on another home.  We were back to square one.  So, to perk us up, our realtor decided to do an open house this past Sunday. And, much to our surprise, someone from the open house loved our house enough to make an offer.  A really low offer.

So, we went back and forth four or five times.  Finally, we drew the line on our end and said that we wouldn’t sell for anything less than $160,000.  (We listed for $163,500).  After all, our house had only been on the market for 13 days.  There was no reason to start wheeling and dealing quite yet, you know?  However, at the same time, we didn’t really want to mess around.  The house across the street from us took over six months to sell and that would be a recipe for disaster for Greg’s new job situation.  Fortunately, they chose to accept our final offer and we entered a contract to sell our home in 45 days.  We had no idea that it could happen quite so fast….so we’re kind’ve freaked out!

Even though we have a deal, there are still a few things that could go wrong.  Since our buyer has to sell their home to buy ours, there is a chance that the whole deal could fall through.  However, they do have an accepted offer on their home which appears to be legit.  We shall see…..

We May Be Homeless

Since our closing date is tentatively scheduled for November 1, we don’t have a lot of time to find a home.  If we don’t have any luck house hunting, I suppose we’ll be living in an apartment for a while until something comes along.  The thought of living in an apartment, and moving twice, sounds horrifying so I really hope we don’t have to go that route.  Stay tuned!

Readers, can you picture me living in a small apartment with my husband, dog, and two kids?  Also, have you had any crazy home selling experiences?

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46 Comments

  1. Congrats on the sale! Moving twice sounds awful, but not as bad as dropping a couple hundred thousand on a house you don’t really like. You guys are making the best of a frantic situation.

  2. I really hope that the sale goes through, Holly! And here´s to hoping that you find your dream home, and won´t have to move twice. And if, just if, you end up living temporarily in an apartment, just try to do the best you can, and perhaps,you could keep most of your things in a storage, so you don´t feel like you´re drowning in things. If that´s what´s worrying you, beside the whole living with small children in limited amount of space. But fear not, 1.November is still some time ahead, so you still got time:-)

    1. I know. Anything could go wrong before November!

  3. Nice! While moving twice sucks, I’d rather move twice than end up in a house that I don’t like for a long time. It could be an experiment in minimalist living? Everyone gets two boxes of stuff for the apartment and the rest goes into storage? Haha, maybe not.

    1. Me too. I do not want to get stuck in a house that I don’t like!

  4. My father-in-law and his girlfriend are moving into an apartment until they find a house. I think they move out pretty soon from their current home. I think if you are just a couple and have no kids or dogs it is a LOT easier to do the whole short-term apartment thing, though it would still be really hard to stomach moving twice. I think you guys will find the right home, though, and won’t have to live in an apartment!

  5. I’m loving this series as I get to live vicariously through you. Since I’m not buying a house anytime soon. When we moved to NC, the company I worked for put us up in an apartment for two months while we found a place to live. It was a mega pain to live out of boxes but a pain I was grateful for.

    1. I am terrified of living out of boxes for months at a time.

  6. Hey congrats on selling your house! At least part of the puzzle has fallen into place. I’m extremely shy of buying property in my current location, because I have relatives who have had houses sit on the market for YEARS (with renters in place) without a sale, real estate just moves so damn slow around here!

    1. It moves slow here too sometimes. There are houses in my area that have been on the market for years. But, it’s usually because there’s something wrong with them or they’re overpriced.

  7. Congrats on the sale! That’s great to have that part behind you. Personally I would rather sell and then move into an apartment than have two mortgages…crazy. I can totally see how that would be in a pain in the rear.

  8. Wow that was quick! I hope everything works out perfectly 🙂

  9. Go big and stay in one of those extended stay hotels… Film it, come up with some sort of insane nickname for all your family members, sell it to TLC… PROFIT (also I would like a 10% cut for giving you the idea).

    My inlaws just had to move cross country (VEGAS BABY!) for a job and were struggling to find a house to buy before their corporate housing ran out (his boss extended it since they have a house on contract now).

    1. I actually looked to see if there was an Extended Stay America on the north side. Do those places have a pool?

    1. That is the only reason I’m willing to do it!

  10. Congrats on the sale, that was fast! Hope they’re able to get their house sold so it doesn’t fall through. I would hate apartment living now, but I’d much rather do that then to spend money on a house I didn’t like – so I think it would be worth it in the long run to get what you want. We had a bad experience buying our current house – the couple was getting divorced and one of the parents had put money in to buy it for them so we had to get approval from all three on anything…it was such a headache.

    1. Exactly. I’ve had two houses that weren’t exactly my dream house so I would rather wait until I found something. I don’t want to live in an apartment…but it might have to happen!

  11. Congrats on the sale! We had a similar issues when we decided to build our house. We figured it would take 6 months to sell the house we were living in, but it sold in a month. There aren’t really apartments here except ones for low income families, so to find a rental house for a 6-8 month lease with two dogs was nearly impossible. We looked at a couple and they were just nasty. One of them had a floor that slanted so much, I think it would have given me inner ear trouble from being off balance all the time.

    Oddly, one day in WalMart we ran into Jim’s old boss from Denver (8hrs away)that he hadn’t seen in years. We asked why he was in town, and he had an aunt that had lived here but passed away. He was cleaning out her house to make it a rental! We had to take it as is and deal with repair work going on around us the whole time, but we were super lucky. Otherwise, we would have probably had to get some sort of motor home and live on our construction site.

    1. That’s awesome, Kim! It’s so weird how stuff happens like that sometimes!

  12. Holly!!! Glad to learn things are moving along for you. Although it may be rough with 2 moves in the apartment scenario, your writing and wit would make for some awfully entertaining posts! Have a marvy one!!

  13. I’ve never owned a home, but I’ve always wondered how people dealt with timing a sale while house hunting. I mean you don’t want to rush into buying a place you don’t love, but also don’t want to be stuck moving twice. I think you guys will be fine in an apartment…it’s only temporary! I’m just used to small apartments in NYC maybe.

    1. Remember, we have been living in a 2400 s.f. 4 bedroom house. It’s going to be weird!

  14. Congrats on the sale and the exciting move! I’m a freak, but I love moving (and packing).

    I’ve been debating some moves in the future myself, and it would likely result in two major moves within a 6 month period. However, I don’t have children and own very few possessions. My friends think I’m crazy, but I’m such a minimalist with furniture because I grew up moving around and don’t want to deal with the hassle of hauling around “stuff”!

    1. Kids make things really complicated. I use to love moving before we had kids!

  15. Yikes. If you do have to move to the apartment I would put everything that’s not a necessity in storage so that the only stuff you have to move twice are clothes and pots and stuff like that. Good luck house hunting! 🙂

  16. We actually are picturing that for next year, but two cats instead of a dog. We’ll see what happens though.

  17. Congrats on getting an offer so quick and I hope the deal stands. The worst thing about moving to an apartment is probably not the size but the fact that you will move twice and moving sucks and will involve extra money. Hope you can find a home quickly.

  18. Congrats on getting an offer! Hope everything goes well. We’re currently in the process of looking for a house. So far, nilch… I hope we find a house soon.

  19. Your story is what has me worrying about our plans to sell in January. I am a planner, so having this kind of stuff in limbo worries the hell out of me. This is when I wish I was like my wife.

  20. Congrats on getting an offer! Hopefully you can find something and close quickly, but if not, renting isn’t so bad. Better to do that than pay on two mortgages for an unknown period of time!

  21. Congrats on selling the home! When we relocated from Dallas to LA, we rented until we bought our current home. The move happened fast so we didn’t really have time to go house hunting until after we moved. We didn’t have kids yet so that made it easier, but it was still a pain and my fingers are crossed that you won’t have to go through that too. 🙂

  22. Congrats! In my experience open houses have been a waste of time and only draw looky-lou’s but that obviously wasn’t the case for you guys! Good luck finding a home in the meantime!

  23. About 16 years ago, we went through something similar. My wife and I were testing out townhouses and had rented out our home. We extended the lease for another year and bought our current town house. In the meantime, the value of our former residence increased in value and so did the new townhouse. Win/win!

  24. Easy for me to say Holly but think of it as an adventure. Also, it’s probably a good idea not to project too many negative scenarios into the equation.

    Have a plan B and even a plan C if need be, but keep in your mind that all is working out as planned and that everything will fall into place. A year from now you will all be fondly reminiscing about how things went………………………….or not 🙂

    Take care and all the best to you all.

    Lyle

  25. What a great situation to be in, congrats! Selling your home so quickly must at least take a bit of the pressure off your move. Probably better to be in this situation than it taking 6 months like your neighbours. Good luck on the house hunting.

  26. I’m glad you got the sale out of the way. From what I’ve been told, that’s the scariest part.

    I do hope you don’t end up “homeless” in the short term, but it’s probably better to settle for that in the short-term than to grab at a home you don’t like just because it has a roof and four walls.

    Good luck house hunting! With any luck, you’ll fall in love with place soon and both sides of the home equation will be tied up.

  27. I am sure things will work out! That is crazy everything happened so fast on your side, though. My parent’s had their house on the market for a good nine months before they had a nice offer. They got low-balled quite a few times. There were plenty of open houses that yielded absolutely no results, too. Suffice to say, it was an experience I am glad is over with. It was a roller coaster of emotions for my parent’s, who just wanted to get out as soon as possible since they couldn’t afford living here anymore. My mom was disappointed every time something fell through. I was just tired of having to clean every time I heard there was someone coming to look at the house (yep, I was lazy!).

  28. Congrats on the sale! I am sure that things will work out and you’ll find your dream house before having to move to an apartment.

  29. It’s great that your house sold so fast. The housing market is doing well in the past people had to carry two mortgages when home buying. I’m jealous of houses with a 1 in the price.

  30. My house went under contract after 3 days of crazy showings with a closing 45 days from the date of contract, which was Dec. 27,2012. I was planning on going out of town for Christmas and my house (the house what was supposed to be my replacement house) wasn’t even under construction yet, so I loaded everything in a pod, dropped the cat off at my furnished short term apartment, signed the closing docs early, and left town with the dog. It was CRAZY. I ended up having to leave things at the sold house because I didn’t have the time or energy to deal on Dec. 23. He got a recently reconditioned lawn ower, a huge flower pot, and a big Rubbermaid shed. I was an honest to God nut job for about a week!

    I never want to do that scramble again. Eek!

    On that note, good luck. Haha

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