Moving!

So if you've been reading along for the last 9ish months or so, you've probably heard me mention that we've been living in limbo somewhat. To bring you up to speed, about a year ago Adam accepted a position which relocated us 3 hours north of where we owned our home that we had been renovating. He started at that job, while I stayed down south and finished working at my job until I went on maternity leave. In February, while our house was put on the market, we made the semi-permanent move north with my parents (the hubs *hates* it when I say "we live with my parents" but is there a different way to put it? not really.). This put our new home base about 1 1/2 hours south of where Adam works.

Then, in September OUR HOUSE SOLD and very soon after we had our offer in on a house that is much closer to his work. It listed as a foreclosure and was outside of our price range but it had been on the market for about a year and hadn't had any offers. So we suuuuuuuper lowballed it with little expectation to be taken seriously. But, we were and after a few counter offers we agreed upon a price. We learned that we were negotiating with a bankruptcy trustee who was in charge of the estate.  We were even given a closing date. We prepared to move into our new home and then were hit out of left field. The house was not a foreclosure - but a short sale. The price we negotiated with the trustee was not the final say and that the bank hadn't even seen the offer yet. That closing date we were given - completely fabricated. At least it feels that way. There isn't any other way to explain it. Somewhere, someone (likely the listing agent) dropped the ball. Who lists a house as a foreclosure and allows an offer to go through as such and then 2 weeks before the closing date have something like this fall through the cracks?

We were told that the new plan is to wait til November 30th, where our offer will be brought to bankruptcy court for the bank to see our offer. Then we were told that it could be another 120 days until we hear a final decision. Frustration does not even begin to explain it.  (2 second rant: WHY oh WHY can't there be like 10 routes for buying/selling homes? Why does each and every transaction have to be unique??)

Then we got the bright idea to see if the bank would be willing to rent us the property - after all, the house had been vacant for a long time and our personal interest in moving in (beyond having our own space) was that winter is coming - and the heat had been turned off long ago. Because we are under contract to purchase this home, it is in our best interest to keep that house safe during the winter.

So we proposed the idea and were quickly hooked up with the property manager who works for the bank and we negotiated a rental agreement and guess what? WE MOVED IN YESTERDAY!

Oh man. Words cannot explain how great it was! What made it even better was that typically Adam and I have very bad luck when having to deal with contracted work (such as our kitchen designer, title companies - on 3 counts - sellers/buyers, etc) but this time - everything went so smoothly. The movers were professional, polite and careful with our stuff, we got the water and electrical back up and running as it should. The house warmed up quickly and after cleaning up the floors, we let Penelope crawl around and explore her new home, while Adam and I basked in gratitude and accomplishment.

Penny and Daddy walking the property

This move was very last minute (like - less than 12 hours notice) so there was quite a bit that we left behind at my parents' (namely, the dogs!). I'll be here through the end of the week, finalizing our packing and we'll all be back up at the house this weekend. BIG SIGH of happiness. I even found my Christmas decorations - I'm totally putting them out before Thanksgiving.

It's a really weird position to be in, to rent one's home prior to owning it. Basically we've been told to expect sometime in early Spring for a closing date. It's even stranger because we're big DIY'ers - we renovate for fun. However, we won't be touching this house until it is ours.

And so there you have it. A little over a year and we're back to "normal life," as I call it. I'll be posting pictures soon... blogging will be somewhat intermittent because we don't have internet at the house yet, and apparently it is rural enough that Comcast/Century Link etc don't service out there (??? but it's really not THAT rural!).