Monthly Archives: August 2005

We sold our house!

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We have had our house for sale by owner for four weeks now. It has been a big strain because we hoped for a quick sale and even thought we had it sold a few weeks ago only to have the buyers back out after 24 hours. Last Thursday I arranged for two showings of the house for Saturday, and drove down to Indiana early Saturday morning for that purpose. The second (and last) couple to view the house promptly made a good offer, which I accepted immediately. We signed a contract, they wrote a check for earnest money, and as far as I can tell, the rest of the process is going smoothly because they are preapproved for a loan and have already sold (and moved out of) their previous house. We are thrilled and thankful. It looks like we may be able to close on the transaction somewhere around Labor Day.

Each step of this very stressful and hectic transition has seemed impossible to us, yet at every turn, God has provided just what is needed. This has included the necessary income, extra help from family and friends, and many other examples.

Last night I unpacked all of my clothes and organized them in our large walk-in closet in the master bedroom. Michele needs to do the same for her clothes next, but the most important thing for us to take care of in the next few days is Keegan’s school registration. He starts school next Tuesday.

Back online again

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It is great to have high speed Internet again after being without it for over a week. We are settling in nicely here in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. We all really like this location and we are enjoying the many conveniences such as tons of places to shop for groceries and other things. As an example of the benefits to living close to everything, Monday night, after a long wait, Comcast service people came to install cable TV and Internet access. I had bought a cable modem when we had cable Internet installed in our house in Indiana 3 1/2 years ago, and I assumed I could use that same modem here. Unfortunately, Comcast doesn’t support it and told me I had to buy a new one. I zipped down the road to Best Buy and found a nice Motorola cable modem for $75 (by the way, that’s less than half the cost of the modem I purchased from the cable company in Indiana when we moved there). The entire trip took only 15 minutes.

Another nicety? There is a Starbucks less than a block away. (Funny though, I have yet to go there.) I badly need a haircut, but the nice thing is that there are two barber shops within a stone’s throw of our house.

Disappointment reigns

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It seems that yesterday was too good to be true. Sigh. This a.m. we received a call from the prospective buyers of our house. After signing an agreement and giving us earnest money, the couple had gone home to figure out their budget and unfortunately came to the conclusion that they couldn’t afford to buy our house, after all. Disappointment reigns in our house today.

Possible sale of our house

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Well, it looks like our prayers have been answered. Today we signed an agreement to sell our house to a local family. They need to figure out financing and because they already own a house, they will need to rent or sell it before buying ours. So it isn’t 100% certain but even so, we are very thankful for this development. Our agreed upon sale price is lower than we had hoped for but we think it is a fair deal. It’s interesting because the buyers (husband and wife) are both teachers whom Keegan had in elementary school.

Calm (before the storm)

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The past few days have been pretty calm, which is a welcome change. Only a week to go before we move house. We’re waiting for our appraisal before contacting some of the people who’ve looked at the house with a firmer idea of an asking price. Last night a local real estate agent came by to give me her card “in case I needed any help.” I hope we won’t have to resort to that.

There is a lot of work left to do, e.g. cleaning out the garage, doing a lot of landscaping and yard cleanup. Also there is a lot of work left to do at my job to finalize things before I leave, and the class I’m currently teaching wraps up in the next few days as well.

I haven’t mentioned anything about Michele’s health situation for a long time. This is a case of “no news is good news.” Fortunately she is doing pretty well, although she has bad spells once in a while, usually when she is overstressed and tired out.

First day of showing house

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The past 24 hours have been very grueling. We had tons of things to do to get the house ready to show and we had several showings scheduled for today. I also had scheduled an appraisal for this a.m. Fortunately (with very little sleep) we accomplished most of the things we needed to do.

Aside from the appraisers who arrived first this a.m., I showed the house five times, from noon until 6p. Michele took the kids on a day-long shopping trip.

We are really pleased by the level of interest in the house. At least 12-15 people have called to inquire about it. Tomorrow we have two or three more people coming. In a few days we should have the report from the appraiser and then (hopefully) have a better idea of the market value of the house. This will help us set a more informed asking price. No offers yet, but we’re hopeful that someone will make an offer soon.

It’s going to be an early night because we are exhausted.