As we continued moving forward with the church in Wilson, NC, we began looking to purchase our first home. I mean it makes a whole lot of sense to take a HUGE pay cut, start a new call and buy a home all at the same time, right!?!? The beginning of February, we found ourselves back in Wilson for another interview and decided to look at a couple of houses we had found on the internet. Our realtor had lined up a few houses for us to see on a Friday. One of the houses that we found was not on his short list, so we asked him if we could add it. When he called to schedule an appointment, he found out that there was an elderly woman that lived there. He also found out that the sellers were requesting a 24-hour appointment notice. Since we were coming back to Wilson the next day for another interview, we scheduled an appointment to go see the house.
We went to look at the houses. By the end of the day, I was discouraged...none of the houses fit our family very well. They were either too small for our family of six or it didn't have options for a classroom and guest room...two spaces we really needed to have.
On the drive over Saturday to see another house, I got a great peace it. I felt the presence of the Spirit within me. I told Chris that I felt like the day I gave my life to Jesus...that butterfly in the stomach...heart racing...kind of feeling. I thought it so strange to feel that way since we were just buying a house. When we pulled up to the house, we began walking around. The front flowerbeds had hydrangeas (one of my favorite flowers) in them. A dad and a son pulled up to the house next door. The son was about the same age as Josiah and was wearing an Upward basketball jersey. I really felt like these were signs from the Lord. We go inside and so many of our needs for a house were being checked off. The only downside is we were going to need to do some renovations, but in some ways were excited about doing them. We went ahead and put an offer on the house. We get to the inspection part and find out that there was about $14,000 worth of stuff that needed to be fixed. I am not talking about updating, but things that needed to be done to get the house safe and up to code. We began to pray that the Lord would work out all the details and that the sellers would be willing to fix the things that were on the list. In the early morning of due diligence day, I woke up. I started praying that the Lord would move in the hearts of the sellers to fix all that needed to be fixed...that they would do the right thing. I paused long enough before the Lord to hear Him say, "You need to pray for your heart...for you to walk away from this house." It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, but I listened and began to pray for my heart. Later that day we found out that the sellers really didn't want to sell the house and were refusing to fix anything. The elderly lady had a daughter living with her. The daughter shared that if her mom sold the house then she would have no place to live. I surprisingly handled it very well...thanks to the Lord's leading on how to pray that morning.
A couple of days later, I woke up really early again. I decided to start looking at houses again. There was this house that came up that was well above our budget. I wanted to scroll past it...I have seen enough "House Hunters" to know not to look out of your price range. But the Lord was persistent and nudged me to look at the house anyways. As I was reading about the house, I saw a section where the sellers wrote what they loved about the house. They talked about raising their kids there. The husband shared how he listened to the creek from his office as he wrote sermons. And the very last thing they wrote was how they were praying for another family to come love their house as much as they have. I showed Chris this listing, and I asked him if we should write a letter to the sellers explaining our situation...being first time homeowners, taking a pay cut, etc. and see if they would be willing to come down in price. Chris thought it was worth trying, so he wrote the letter and we asked the sellers to come down $20,000. To our surprise they were willing to do so. Now, we did something unconventional. We took a tour of the house via Face Time and we fell in love with the house. We put an offer on the house and started the process once again. Since we were still living in VA Beach, we scheduled a trip to Wilson to see the house in person. When we got there, I realized how deceiving pictures can be. I really started having second thoughts about the house, but Chris felt like we still needed to pursue the house. I wanted to dig my heels in, but I felt the Lord saying that I needed to step back and let Him work with Chris. I shared honestly how I felt like we should walk away from the house and then left it at that. It took a lot of trust in the Lord to not nag Chris and try to persuade him to change his mind, but I knew that is what I needed to do. We had the inspection done and the results came back with $34,000 worth of stuff to be fixed. Again, this wasn't updating, but things that needed to be done to make the house safe and up to code. I wanted to walk away, but Chris felt like we should still pursue this as an option. I think part of our continued pursuit of this house was because we thought it would be a cool story to tell and allow God to be glorified in working out such an amazing testimony. Ultimately, what happened was the sellers felt like if they fixed all the things that needed to be fixed they could set a higher asking price even though three realtors told them that they couldn't do that. And the irony of it all...the sellers called us a few days later and gave us an offer to buy their house. It wasn't much of an offer because they were asking us to pay more so they could get things fixed and they were going to try to fix as much as they could themselves and only hire out as needed. We graciously told them no.
I was completely discouraged with this whole house buying thing. In my mind I thought, "This is NOTHING like what is on 'House Hunters!'" Our realtor sent us some listings, and I honestly didn't want to look at any of them. But Sunday night, I decided to get back in the game and began looking again. I found a house that I liked on the internet back in February, but it was out of our budget. Here we were a few weeks later and the price had been reduced...it was in our budget!! Chris calls our realtor Monday and asks him about this house. He makes a phone call to the selling agent to find out that an offer had been put on it over the weekend. I was SO sad, but realized that there was nothing we could do. We finished up our last week in VA Beach spending time with friends and packing. A few more houses popped up on the market that we felt might work for our family. We had scheduled a time on Friday to meet with our realtor to look at more houses. As the week went on, we had a pretty decent list to chose from. On Thursday as we were driving to NC, Chris gets a phone call from our realtor letting us know where and when we would meet on Friday. Before they hung up, our realtor asked if we were still interested in the house we called about on Monday. Chris said that we were definitely interested and asked him to add it to the list. We found out that the buyers decided to walk away from their contract because they were moving into Wilson for the first time and decided to rent instead of buy!
We started our day off looking at some houses...I was definitely thinking about seeing this particular house. None of the houses felt right. We would have to give up our classroom or go without a guest room or our dining room table that sits eight wouldn't fit or there wasn't a place for the kids' toys or it was a lot further from the church than we really wanted. And then we finally get to the house that I had been waiting to see. We walked in, and I just knew that this was the house for us. It has three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms...perfect for our family. It has an open kitchen and living room for entertaining. It has a big enough dining room for our table. It has a room for the kids to put their toys and Wii in. It has a room for our classroom with a utility sink so we can do fun art and science projects and not track through the house. It has a room for our guests. It has a fenced in backyard with a koi pond. There are HUGE hydrangea bushes with buds galore. It has a garage with plenty of storage space and a separate tool shed for Chris' lawn equipment. There is even a place for the kids to have a basketball hoop. It is located in a quiet neighborhood where we can ride bikes and run. And on top of all that...we are about 3 minutes from the church!!! This house literally has EVERYTHING we could desire!!
The rest of the houses we looked at that day just didn't compare to this house. I kept saying things weren't as good compared to this house. At that point, I think Chris knew that I was sold on this house. So, in short, we put an offer on this house. We were excited, but cautious at the same time. We had been here two other times and nothing came of it. I think we were both anxious about the whole inspection part. The selling agent did share with us the inspection that was done in February and there was nothing major that needed to be done. She also shared that she had a big heart to heart with seller and told him that he will need to fix things since the house has been on the market for almost a year. He agreed that he would need to. Even though we had this verbal agreement, I think Chris and I wouldn't believe it until we had a signature. We went ahead and had our inspection done and then our contractor came over to give some estimates. We finally got a reasonable number to send to the seller...and then we waited. The couple of days we waited seemed like forever, but we knew we just needed to trust the Lord. Our realtor called us Tuesday afternoon and informed us that the seller will be paying for EVERYTHING on the list with the stipulation that we actually show up to the closing!! 😁 Ummm, this guy has no idea what we will do to get that closing!! 😂
So, we are excited to say the least! It has definitely been a trial buying our first home, but the Lord knew that He had this particular house waiting for us. I think about all the details leading up to seeing this house. For so long it was priced high...if it had been lower, then the house might have sold before we even had a chance to move. I feel like the Lord had it come off the market with that couple to give us time to get to NC to see it in person. I believe the Lord moved in the couple's heart to rent instead of buy a house. All I can do is praise the Lord for working out all of the details with this house...for blessing us with way more than we deserve...for knowing the perfect house to raise our family in and do the ministry He has called us to.
So, without further delay...here is our house:
There will be another blog in the near future as we get unpacked and settled into our new home. I am sure it will contain LOTS of before and after pictures...especially when it comes to the yard! 😆
