The past 2 weeks have such a whirlwind. You know how there are those periods of time when there is so much that happens it feels like when you look back at the beginning of it all it feels like it was 100 years ago? Yeah, its like that.
Backtracking a bit, back in January Angelo and I decided to seriously start looking at buying houses again. It was a big deal for us deciding to get back on that horse.
I had just gotten to the point where after trying to buy a home in Roseville for 3 years, I had accepted that maybe God wasn't going to give us one, and I was okay with that. Then, of course, God being God, decided to say "Okay now that you've learned contentment, time to try again." and thus we were thrown back into the home buying process, this time, He was directing us toward Elk Grove.
It's really hard to buy a home right now, since the whole credit crunch a few years ago, they want so much more proof of income and paperwork showing that you have good credit, zero debt, and so on and so forth. The first few months were spent jumping through the hoops to show all the proof they needed for us to qualify for a home loan. Then on top of all that, most homes for sale are short sales or foreclosures which are infamous for taking months and months to close, if they close at all.
Then began the search.
We started looking at houses on March 19th and boy, we were in for a surprise. We went out and looked at 3-5 houses, then deciding which of those was our favorite, we decided to put in our first offer.
The house had gone on the market that morning at 8am. We had our offer into the listing agent by 3pm and were excited as we thought about how lucky we were to get our offer in on the first day! Well, we were excited, until we found out that our offer was not the first, but the TWELFTH offer they had gotten that day. Whoa...
We still prayed and hoped, then a few days later, we found out that they had chosen a different offer.
We did this 5 more times over the next month. Offer in, offer denied. Hope come. Hope lost.
We smiled, we cried, we got excited, we got upset, and ultimately we got super frustrated.
This led to endless nights of intense conversations about where we felt God was leading us. We had thought He had made it so clear that this is what He wanted, having brought our hearts to a place where we were willing to look outside our box of what we thought we wanted in Roseville and start pursuing this seemingly "open door" in Elk Grove.
After a ton of prayer and seeking wise council, we pulled our hearts back in and realized that if it's meant to happen, God will make it happen. We can try as hard as we want, and look at real estate websites every minute we have to make sure we don't miss any, but ultimately, it's out of our hands.
The next day, we got a call from our realtor that our offer had finally been accepted on house #7. It was a huge praise. We had finally gotten a bit of confirmation that we were heading the direction God wanted us.
The next 4 months we hoped and waited as the bank went through the short sale process appraising, trying to qualify for various government programs, and conversing with the sellers attorney on the short sale.
The next thing we know, we find out that the house had been foreclosed on and was sold at auction to a cash investor for $30k less than our offer. That was 2 weeks ago.
We were totally shocked and once again were thrown into the unknown. Unless the cash investor would like to sell us the house for our original offer, we were going to have to start over, again.
My attitude at first was very positive. After 4 months of hearing nothing, it was nice to get a yes or no. "God has something better. We prayed that if this wasn't the one that he would take it away. So maybe this was an answer to prayer. I'm totally okay because I know God has my best at heart and will lead us to that" But I knew that there would be a point when it would really sink in and I would probably have a breakdown.
It came. Friday night as I looked at the real estate websites once again for new listings I felt hopeful still, but as I clicked the link to send a listing to my realtor for viewing, my heart knew that this was our reality, starting over.
I cried so hard. Thank goodness for my wonderful husband who held me as I let myself finally grieve over the loss of what we thought might have been our home. I had so much emotion bottled up that being able to get it out, then brush off my face and stand tall ready to move forward, it felt so good.
The following Monday we drove out to look at the house I had emailed to my realtor. It was near perfect, with only minor compromises, but it was all made up for by the fantastic neighborhood. So we decided once again to try to put in our offer. So Tuesday morning, we submitted offer #8.
We sent messages out to all of our family and friends and posted on our prayer forums on Facebook asking them to pray that God would give us wisdom and discernment and that he would bring us to the home he wanted us to be in. Whether it is this, or somewhere else.
We got our answer Friday morning. Somewhere else. Once again, our offer was rejected.
We still continue to pray that God will lead us to where he wants us to be. Unfortunately this story doesn't have a happy ending yet, but we feel more at peace every time we get the "not yet" answer to our prayer as we learn to trust in Him more every day.
I have learned so much about patience, perseverance, the power of prayer one-on-one and when others come along side us in prayer, I have learned more about my husband, about God and about myself as we trudge through this trial. At times it hurts, but we still have faith that one day, he will answer our prayer. I wouldn't trade all the pain for anything. We have learned so much and that, my friends, is a bit of the goodness that God always promises.
So today, there are currently no homes on the market that are a good fit for our family or budget, so we wait.
Will we still be able to move in to our home we were in contract on by Aug 31?
Will the investor even want to sell us the house?
Will we have a home before our lease is up in Roseville in December?
Will we be in Elk Grove or does God have somewhere else in mind?
Will the next time be the last time we put in an offer?
Will we know the answer to these questions soon?
Well, God knows. Maybe he'll let us in on it soon :)
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