The story of our new house

So we started looking for a new house back in May. Spent countless hours on Redfin, a couple of long days out with our realtor, saw probably 15-20 houses. It was like freaking Goldilocks - too big, too small a yard, horribly configured finished basements, too close together, too close to the main road, development missing community pool, etc. We knew the area we wanted to move to, but there are literally 20+ housing communities out this way. They are all family oriented and most of them are great, but of course having so many houses means more traffic getting to the area and then down the connector roads. Picking the perfect house was trying.

So, the perfect house found us! My mom actually found it for us, inadvertently. She was out estate-sale-ing in a neighborhood we really liked, which had only a few houses for sale and they were at the top (or possibly over the top) of our budget. She started chatting with the owners and found out that the owner's mom died and they were selling her stuff. My mom mentioned our interest in the neighborhood, the wife invited her in for a tour, and my mom left them her number. The house needed a LOT of TLC! It was a wreck inside - stuff everywhere (they were moving it out), some holes needing patching, toilet paper rolls off the wall, etc. But, a great configuration. So a couple weeks went by with no call from this couple. We continued to look at houses with our realtor. We made a list of 10 houses to see one week and then the night before we were supposed to go out with the realtor all but the last two on our list were still available. It seemed everything was going like hot cakes and we couldn't think on anything.

Finally the owner of our house called. He felt it was Divine Providence that my mom talked to him and he felt moved by the experience! He wanted us to come look at the house and let him know if we were interested. He is a newly ordained minister in an Anglican church and has been struggling with what to do with this house. He bought it, moved his mom in when she got sick, met a woman at work, got involved with a church up near work and this woman's house, moved in with and married her, and then his mom died a few years ago. He has been coming down weekly to cut the grass and whatnot, but does not live here. He felt it was time to pass this great house on to a family that would care for it and really take advantage of the wonderful neighborhood. Through a series of meetings with the owner, we worked out the price and the details. Our realtor represented us, but guided the owner through the process so he would not have to pay realtor fees to someone else. He wanted us to have the house. The night he and his wife accepted our offer, they had us over to talk about it, and his wife was crying - tears of JOY! - for us, for our family, and for her family. They could leave this albatross behind and move on with their life, and we could have a wonderful house and yard for ours.

Divine Providence, indeed.

Thanks for listening!
~Erin