I'm Baaaaack!!!!

Woah!!!! Where have you been woman?! Well, long story short, our plans have not exactly gone as planned the past few months. I would need to write a ton of blog posts to get you caught up on all the deets, however, who really gives, right?! I will summarize the best I can...

The house we were building, our "dream" house, the one we devoted all our time, energy, money and every evening to for the past 9 months to, didn't happen!! There are many, many things I don't understand in this earthly world of ours, but this one really caught me off guard! God has a way of looking out for us, even though we sometimes question His timing, but He has never EVER steered us in the wrong direction.. Thanks Man!!

We were one week from closing, when the call came in... our final appraisal had came in short... $6,000 short!! Before I panicked, I looked over the appraisal report. The must have been a mistake on one of the comps. It was the model home that we copied ours after. We agreed to purchase our home for $1,000 less than the price of the model home, because it was on a larger lot. Per the report, it sold for $8,000 less than what we were told! There must have been some mistake in paperwork on the appraiser's end, right? Wrong! The mistake was on the builders end. When we confronted him about this and the fact that the appraisal came in short, he was not willing to work with us. It was either come up with the extra cash or walk away. Now let me just say that before all of this happened, we had the most pleasant building experience like ever! He answered calls/texts the same day, was always willing to make adjustments within hours and let us make add-ons where normally they weren't made. It was all going so smoothly.. or so we thought. I'm not saying he willing knew all along that he was over charging us on this home and was upset with us for not using him in house lending department from the start, but, well... um ya.

So, long story short, we got our earnest money back and walked away from the home we watched come together from the tree filled lot up to the finishing touches in the painted trim in the laundry room. No, I'm not bitter about it at all ;)

After a small panic attack, we called our realtor and got him on the ball!! Financing was not a problem on our end, so nothing had changed there. We just needed to find a house.. and in a hurry! We had already turned our lease in and our house was in boxes (remember, we were ONE week from moving!!).

We jumped in the car and went house hunting!! We ended up in a neighborhood we had looked at a year or so before hand. At the time, we didn't think it was affordable for us, but at this point, we thought anything is worth looking at!! We viewed two homes. The first one was beautiful, but just didn't WOW me. The second home just had it all!! From the minute we walked through the door, it just felt like home. It had everything we were building.. and MORE!! It had all the upgrades we were putting in our other house.. and MORE that we were either going to just wait on or do without because of budget. It was still a wooded lot (which is what we wanted). It still had granite in the kitchen (which is what I wanted {and have been waiting years for}). It had so many of the same features that we have always loved, it was scary! {example: the lighting fixtures on the front and back porch were the EXACT ones we custom ordered!}

At this point, we knew we would be putting in an offer on this home!! After a couple back and forth numbers, we signed a contract!! (all within 48 hours of THE dreaded phone call) We rented a very large storage unit for 30 days and moved our entire house into it and stayed with my husband parents for a couple of weeks. GOD BLESS THEM!!! I couldn't ask for better in-laws.. Really!!

Our lender was AMAZING and pushed the paperwork through lighting fast!! We closed within 3 weeks!! And the best part.... We locked our interest rate this time around into something even better than before (which was awesome) and even though we paid more for this home than the one we were building, our payments are LOWER!! High five to the big man upstairs!! TRUST is something I will always have from here on out :)

So, now that a few months of complete craziness has gone by, I will be blogging again!! Woohoo!!

When I look back on everything that has happened, there is no doubt in my mind, I know it was never in God's plan for us to ever live in that house. For whatever reason, it was His plan and His timing for us to experience the home building process (which was a blast, for the most part), the transition process and the adjusting process. Through all of this, we have never asked "Why us", but we have held our heads high and looked forward.

It was worth it.

Stayed tuned for a home tour....