We are thrilled about God's provision in this.. His had has been so evident in the process from the beginning. When we started the process of "browsing"(...I say browsing because we weren't totally serious, just really considering buying the house and allowing God to begin leading us through the process at His pace...) we talked about what we wanted and what we knew we could afford. That led us to a darling neighborhood in Richardson, where lots of young couples are coming in and fixing up homes that have mostly been 1 or 2 owner homes since they were built in the 50s and 60s. We knew we wanted to fix something up, and we knew the specific pockets of this neighborhood we were interested in. We fell in love with a home that needed lots of work just from looking at pictures, but God didn't want us to have that house.. hence the reason why we could never get a key to actually go look inside the home! So we continued, just checking the internet and talking to our wonderful friend and realtor Lindsay about just kinda feeling out the availability in the area. Well, Lindsay happened upon this one HUD home that was up for auction to Hurricane Katrina evacuees and we all loved the home... but were afraid it would be snatched up. In fact, we couldn't even go look at the house until the auction was up. Well the auction came and went, then we got to go see the house. It was instant love! We saw so much potential, but knew we would have to get some people out to look at the house even before we put a bid in... yes I said bid. I'll explain in a minute. Well, we had a foundation guy come out since there were lots of interior and exterior cracks, and learned that there were NO problems, just typical movement in a pier and beam home. Then we had Caleb's step-dad, Geary, come out since he is a general contractor so we could get a ball-park for how much we would need to invest in the home to get it up to liveable conditions. Once that was done, we really just began to pray about the number we should bid on the home. You see, buying a HUD home is not a traditional process. You have a deadline in which to place an online, blind bid on the home. This means that anyone can bid on the home at any price and you have no idea what anyone else is doing until the auction is over. The only gauge you have is the list price HUD put on the home based on a very unthorough, inaccurate appraisal. Soo.. we really began seeking the Lord as to what we should do, should we place a bid and if so, for how much. We sought wise council, prayed and just really began to trust the Lord that no matter what, God was in control of the process. The day before the bidding ended, we met with our precious friends Ryan and Lindsay (mortgage banker/broker and realtor husband-wife team), prayed together and put in a bid on the home. It was so amazing for Caleb and I in the process, because it was one of those times as a couple that we experienced so clearly absolute peace with one another and the Lord that we had made the right decision. So now the waiting game began... we knew we would find out sometime on Monday (it was Saturday..). Well Monday finally arrived and we got the news.. we had been outbid. It was a tough pill to swallow, but we had to continue to trust that God was in control, and that there was a reason we did not get the house. We were so thankful to Lindsay who just continued to remind us that God has a reason and we needed to just trust that. SO.. after that rollercoaster experience, we started looking again that day, and through the next 4-5 days we were just so disappointed. We did not see anything on the market that we liked and met our needs, so we really didn't know what to do. It was the Thanksgiving break, so we just focused on family and took a break. Over the weekend we just talked about how we really didn't see anything at the time and thought we would just have to wait until spring whenever the market picked up, but were willing to keep our eyes peeled in case something happened to come up. So, Monday began a new week for us. I made an appointment to meet up with Lindsay to pick up the earnest money check so I could redeposit it. Then around 1:30 I noticed I had 3-4 missed phone calls from Lindsay and was worried so I called her back immediately. She answered my call and the first words out of her mouth were, "Katie, You got the house. You got the house. Oh my gosh, Katie, you got the house!" I froze.. didn't know how to re-act, I was processing and I made her tell me again like 5 times. Then, in true Katie form, I got excited and started being silly, doing cheerleader jumps and acting like I was 10. I told Lindsay I had to let her go because I needed to call Caleb and more importantly, I had a student waiting on me.. SO, I called Caleb, out of breath and so excited I could barely get the words out, but I kept saying "I am not joking, believe me, please. We got the house. Caleb, I'm serious." He probably believed me the first time, but I didn't want him to think I was kidding because this had been such a rollercoaster ride. Then I proceeded to tell him I had to let him go because I had a student and made him process that all on his own. Poor guy... Well, he knew he married a very happy and often overly emotional woman... So once the excitement settled, we had to jump through about a billion hoops, sign a million addendums and make sure it was all correct because I didn't want to lose the house because of a mistake. And here we are now.. just over a week from closing on our first home and ready to see God work in our home and in the budget of this project. I hope you have fun journeying with us through this process... it is going to be a true labor of love and of the Lord.
And I promise my future posts will NOT be this long again. It was painful even for me! Pictures to come soon...
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