Part 2: Finding the House

So it was go time and go time it was.

After buying our first home, we realized we were the typical first-time homeowner and bought with our hearts and not exactly with our minds. Please don't get me wrong, we loved our home and the things we loved about it when we first saw it were the same things we loved about it when we moved out. It was home, but it had its issues and we really, really, really wish we would have waited since the market crashed just after.

This time we set out with a huge checklist of wants and needs and decided not to settle. We would look high and low for the perfect house that would fit our needs. There was no rush. We still had our home and decided to rent it if it did not sell once we found another home. Bob just felt that the interest rates were starting to rise a little and it would be better to find a home now instead of later. We did not want to miss the boat again like we did with our first home. We were trying to learn from our mistakes.

Our wants were not impossible and actually pretty simple for a family of 5. We needed space and room to grow. We needed another bathroom. We wanted an entryway that we weren't tripping over kids' stuff. We wanted a master bedroom with a decent (not crazy big) bathroom. We did not want to live on a main street (duh). We did not want land (we hate yard work). We did not want to be too far from Bob's work (the closer the better).

Pretty simple, right? And pretty standard for anyone looking for their second home.

With my mother-in-law, who is our real estate agent, we went looking for THE house.

We saw 2 houses on a Saturday, 3 houses on that Monday, and then on Wednesday I was suppose to go see a house, but forgot that I had scheduled a play date. My mother-in-law decided that since it was very close to where she lived, she'd keep the appointment and just preview it for us and if she knew we'd like it, we'd go see it Saturday.

And that is how falling down the rabbit hole started for us. The next circumstances and events were purely gifts from God.Of course it was a house that we almost didn't go and see that we decided to buy.

Here is how it went down:

• Mother-in-law decides to go see house without us.
• House looks vacant from pictures, so she arrives early and homeowner is actually home, but let her in anyway. 
• Homeowner shares their life story. Spent a long time looking for a home. Finally found this one and on their closing day just one month earlier, found out they were being transferred to California for the job of a lifetime. Bought the house and listed it on the same day. 
• Mother-in-law finds out that they already have another offer on the house, but it is low and they are just hoping to get their mortgage paid for because the transfer is taking care of the deposit on the house that they lost. 
• Mother-in-law calls me, says that Bob and I have to come see this house today. 
• We head out after nap time. Bob meets us from work. We walk through one-at-a-time because we had the kids in car. 
• House is perfect. 
• On Halloween, we put in our offer knowing the facts of what we know. As kids are trick-or-treating, offer is accepted. 
• We are buying a house.

So, if you are keeping track, we decided to move, started looking, found a home, had an offer accepted all in 10 days. We went from not moving to packing everything up in a blink of an eye.

There were so many things about this house that just worked out. It had everything on our list and then some. Probably the only thing we settled on was that it is a corner lot. Bob hates shoveling all the sidewalk associated with the corner. But that was a small sacrifice when everything else was going just right.

It is about 2 miles away from Bob's work. A friend of mine lives down the street. My mother-in-law lives a half mile away. The neighborhood is overflowing with children. And the kicker of it all, it is in my hometown.

It was the right home. We got in at the right time. One month earlier and we would not have been able to afford it. The previous owners' circumstance made this house our gift from God. We needed them to make this house a possibility for us.

We weren't sure what "go time" would look like, but we never thought everything would happen so quickly and smoothly. We are so thankful and grateful for it all.