Yea!!! We bought a house!!! We put in an offer last Thursday and the deal was done Saturday!
So… how did all of this come about?
Last Thursday I was in the process of typing an email of homes I wanted to look at over the weekend with our Realtor, Michelle Merritt. I realized I hadn’t written down one of the addresses and wasn’t sure of the house number so I went back online to verify. I tried to look up the address specifically by the neighborhood and the website wouldn’t budge, so I backed out and pulled up my saved search of the Middle School area. It went right through and the first thing on the screen was a new listing! I’d just checked the web at lunch and there were no new listings! So my heart immediately started pounding a little faster. And as soon as I pulled it up and saw the address… I had no doubt it would end up being the right house!
What did the address have to do with it? Well… our new address is 17739 DORCAS Circle. Dorcas is pronounced “dork”–us. One of my first memories of Glen and Karen moving up here was when we drove past Dorcas Circle. I remember thinking it was a funny name and would hate to live on a street with “dork” in the name. It’s made me giggle several times over the last several years when we’d come up to visit and we’d drive by the street. So, of course, the house I’d find would end up being on Dorcas!
As soon as I got through giggling to myself, I called Realtor Michelle and left her a voice message saying I wanted to look at it as soon as possible. She called me back and asked if I wanted to look at it that evening and I said “Absolutely!” I just had a funny feeling I really needed to see it. She called me back to let me know we could squeak in at 5:45, just before both of us had to have our kids at sports practices. She also informed me the listing had just been posted and the other Realtor was quite shocked. There wasn’t even a sign in the yard yet!
There were no pictures on the web, so I had no idea what the house looked like. I can’t explain it, but as I drove straight from the office to the house… I just knew it was the house. My head was flooded with praise and worship songs the whole drive. As soon as I pulled up in front of the house I wanted to cry. It was beautiful!!!
Steve and his parents showed up shortly after I did and we all walked around the outside for a few minutes until Michelle got there. We made mental notes of the outside… It’s fully fenced, the front is full brick and the remainder of the house is a very tastefully done vinyl siding. (Most homes up here are wood siding with little brick or rock on the exterior due to the higher cost of the products in this area.) The landscaping was developed and looked great and there were several good size trees. All a good start!
Once Michelle got there we hurried to the door! As soon as she pushed the door open all I remember is her saying “Oh, Ame!” She knew as soon as she walked in! She’s not only my realtor but one of my very best friends here in Nebraska! She and I have had countless conversations about homes, hopes, wants, have-to-haves, room sizes, etc. And she knew the instant she opened the door! And she was right!!!
As we walked through the house… room-by-room… it just become more and more clear. I knew it, Steve knew it, Steve’s mom knew it… We all knew it was the one! So before we left the house we told Michelle we were ready to put in an offer. Mind you, over the course of the last eight months we have not moved quickly on any potential home purchase. We’ve been very careful, given ourselves time to think and process, time to weigh the pros/cons, time to research, time to pray, etc. This time, it just felt right. I knew. Once we got all the kids situated with practices Michelle came over with the paperwork. The listing hadn’t even been on the market 4 hours when the seller’s received their first offer. Given the current market, you can only imagine their surprise!
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep that night, but I did. Soundly! The best sleep I’d had in weeks! I woke up before the alarm and was immediately thinking of the house. Going through the pros and cons, wondering if we’d moved too fast, but the idea of not getting the house made me more anxious than the idea of anything else. I prayed and felt a peace and stillness inside. I knew it was all going to be okay, one way or the other.
It was still painful to wait for the seller’s counter-offer and when it came in I was heart broken. Since the home had been on the market less than 24 hours, I had tried to prepare myself for them not to be willing to come off their price much… but given the market, I was really hoping they’d come down. Sadly they did not. The first counter didn’t move them off their asking by much at all and I was prepared for Steve to throw up his hands and say we’d move on to a better deal.
I called Steve immediately and gave him the gist of the counter and then he had to get off the phone to finish a meeting. He had no response at that time and I didn’t get to talk to him again until the end of the work day. It was excruciating to wait for his response and to be able to talk to him about things. And while he was notably disappointed with the counter, he was prepared to counter back! So we did…
We had their response early Saturday morning. It wasn’t great, but it was reasonable and closer to where we wanted to be. So we asked for a second walk through prior to giving our acceptance or counter. We walked back through it that afternoon with Steve’s parents and his sister and nieces. We all went in with specific things to look at, tape measures and note pads in hand.
As we were getting ready to leave I asked Steve what we were going to do. He turned to me and asked what I wanted to do. I told him I just wanted to accept. I didn’t want to go back and forth over another $1500. He said okay and we gave the nod to Michelle and she called the other Realtor with our verbal agreement. We left the house to head straight to Tyler’s football game. We’d barely left the neighborhood when she called to tell us we had it! So we made our way to game and as soon as we got home she brought over the final papers for us to sign!!!
The “SOLD” sign was in the yard before nightfall!
Glen ran to the store once the papers were signed and returned with a bottle of champagne! He poured everyone a glass, including teeny-tiny ones for the boys and toasted our new home! Karen broke out some of her Harry & David’s Pepper Jelly and made this amazing cream cheese dip and we finished our glass of champagne, talked about plans and snacked on the incredible dip! Then we loaded up and headed to Michelle Merritt’s house to receive hugs and congratulatory cheers from a few of our friends! It was all very nice and so sweet!
Steve and I both woke up before the sun was up Sunday morning! We tried desperately to go back to sleep, but it was no use! We got up and went downstairs. I flipped through organizing and decorating books, he made coffee and cooked breakfast and we just talked and talked and talked about our new house.
It’s just so exciting. I knew once we finally had our home it would help fill a small void that being “homeless” (so to speak) had left. And I knew there would be learning in the waiting. And I knew we would appreciate it all the more once it happened. But I still can’t put to words how HAPPY I feel!
There’s still a part of me that feels sad. Owning a home in Omaha, Nebraska, makes living here all the more permanent. And while we love it here and the boys have adjusted well… It makes the fact we’re eight hours away from our family and friends in OKC more concrete. We love you and miss you all so much!
I can’t deny it makes my heart hurt, but the absolute JOY of knowing we waited, we saved, we paid down more debt, we were smart about our decisions and have charted a new course worthy of all the prayers… it’s simply… priceless!
Thank you all for your encouragement, prayers and well wishes!!!
God is Good!
So… how did all of this come about?
Last Thursday I was in the process of typing an email of homes I wanted to look at over the weekend with our Realtor, Michelle Merritt. I realized I hadn’t written down one of the addresses and wasn’t sure of the house number so I went back online to verify. I tried to look up the address specifically by the neighborhood and the website wouldn’t budge, so I backed out and pulled up my saved search of the Middle School area. It went right through and the first thing on the screen was a new listing! I’d just checked the web at lunch and there were no new listings! So my heart immediately started pounding a little faster. And as soon as I pulled it up and saw the address… I had no doubt it would end up being the right house!
What did the address have to do with it? Well… our new address is 17739 DORCAS Circle. Dorcas is pronounced “dork”–us. One of my first memories of Glen and Karen moving up here was when we drove past Dorcas Circle. I remember thinking it was a funny name and would hate to live on a street with “dork” in the name. It’s made me giggle several times over the last several years when we’d come up to visit and we’d drive by the street. So, of course, the house I’d find would end up being on Dorcas!
As soon as I got through giggling to myself, I called Realtor Michelle and left her a voice message saying I wanted to look at it as soon as possible. She called me back and asked if I wanted to look at it that evening and I said “Absolutely!” I just had a funny feeling I really needed to see it. She called me back to let me know we could squeak in at 5:45, just before both of us had to have our kids at sports practices. She also informed me the listing had just been posted and the other Realtor was quite shocked. There wasn’t even a sign in the yard yet!
There were no pictures on the web, so I had no idea what the house looked like. I can’t explain it, but as I drove straight from the office to the house… I just knew it was the house. My head was flooded with praise and worship songs the whole drive. As soon as I pulled up in front of the house I wanted to cry. It was beautiful!!!
Steve and his parents showed up shortly after I did and we all walked around the outside for a few minutes until Michelle got there. We made mental notes of the outside… It’s fully fenced, the front is full brick and the remainder of the house is a very tastefully done vinyl siding. (Most homes up here are wood siding with little brick or rock on the exterior due to the higher cost of the products in this area.) The landscaping was developed and looked great and there were several good size trees. All a good start!
Once Michelle got there we hurried to the door! As soon as she pushed the door open all I remember is her saying “Oh, Ame!” She knew as soon as she walked in! She’s not only my realtor but one of my very best friends here in Nebraska! She and I have had countless conversations about homes, hopes, wants, have-to-haves, room sizes, etc. And she knew the instant she opened the door! And she was right!!!
As we walked through the house… room-by-room… it just become more and more clear. I knew it, Steve knew it, Steve’s mom knew it… We all knew it was the one! So before we left the house we told Michelle we were ready to put in an offer. Mind you, over the course of the last eight months we have not moved quickly on any potential home purchase. We’ve been very careful, given ourselves time to think and process, time to weigh the pros/cons, time to research, time to pray, etc. This time, it just felt right. I knew. Once we got all the kids situated with practices Michelle came over with the paperwork. The listing hadn’t even been on the market 4 hours when the seller’s received their first offer. Given the current market, you can only imagine their surprise!
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep that night, but I did. Soundly! The best sleep I’d had in weeks! I woke up before the alarm and was immediately thinking of the house. Going through the pros and cons, wondering if we’d moved too fast, but the idea of not getting the house made me more anxious than the idea of anything else. I prayed and felt a peace and stillness inside. I knew it was all going to be okay, one way or the other.
It was still painful to wait for the seller’s counter-offer and when it came in I was heart broken. Since the home had been on the market less than 24 hours, I had tried to prepare myself for them not to be willing to come off their price much… but given the market, I was really hoping they’d come down. Sadly they did not. The first counter didn’t move them off their asking by much at all and I was prepared for Steve to throw up his hands and say we’d move on to a better deal.
I called Steve immediately and gave him the gist of the counter and then he had to get off the phone to finish a meeting. He had no response at that time and I didn’t get to talk to him again until the end of the work day. It was excruciating to wait for his response and to be able to talk to him about things. And while he was notably disappointed with the counter, he was prepared to counter back! So we did…
We had their response early Saturday morning. It wasn’t great, but it was reasonable and closer to where we wanted to be. So we asked for a second walk through prior to giving our acceptance or counter. We walked back through it that afternoon with Steve’s parents and his sister and nieces. We all went in with specific things to look at, tape measures and note pads in hand.
As we were getting ready to leave I asked Steve what we were going to do. He turned to me and asked what I wanted to do. I told him I just wanted to accept. I didn’t want to go back and forth over another $1500. He said okay and we gave the nod to Michelle and she called the other Realtor with our verbal agreement. We left the house to head straight to Tyler’s football game. We’d barely left the neighborhood when she called to tell us we had it! So we made our way to game and as soon as we got home she brought over the final papers for us to sign!!!
The “SOLD” sign was in the yard before nightfall!
Glen ran to the store once the papers were signed and returned with a bottle of champagne! He poured everyone a glass, including teeny-tiny ones for the boys and toasted our new home! Karen broke out some of her Harry & David’s Pepper Jelly and made this amazing cream cheese dip and we finished our glass of champagne, talked about plans and snacked on the incredible dip! Then we loaded up and headed to Michelle Merritt’s house to receive hugs and congratulatory cheers from a few of our friends! It was all very nice and so sweet!
Steve and I both woke up before the sun was up Sunday morning! We tried desperately to go back to sleep, but it was no use! We got up and went downstairs. I flipped through organizing and decorating books, he made coffee and cooked breakfast and we just talked and talked and talked about our new house.
It’s just so exciting. I knew once we finally had our home it would help fill a small void that being “homeless” (so to speak) had left. And I knew there would be learning in the waiting. And I knew we would appreciate it all the more once it happened. But I still can’t put to words how HAPPY I feel!
There’s still a part of me that feels sad. Owning a home in Omaha, Nebraska, makes living here all the more permanent. And while we love it here and the boys have adjusted well… It makes the fact we’re eight hours away from our family and friends in OKC more concrete. We love you and miss you all so much!
I can’t deny it makes my heart hurt, but the absolute JOY of knowing we waited, we saved, we paid down more debt, we were smart about our decisions and have charted a new course worthy of all the prayers… it’s simply… priceless!
Thank you all for your encouragement, prayers and well wishes!!!
God is Good!
