God is in the Details; Part II The House Hunt

We were very unsure how the house selling in Atlanta would go....our list price was ~$10k below what we paid for the house in 2006 and our realtor and relo company said to sell it quick we needed to be another $20k below that.  In hindsight they were right.....IF we had listened at the time we may have saved ourselves another $20k but sometimes bad news takes a while to sink in and become real in your head.  For those out there who know you need to sell; listen to the experts from Day 1.  For those that don't need to sell, stay where you are ride out the storm.

Given we had some time to kill until the spring market heated up in Atlanta and we had found NOTHING in Roanoke that excited us that much we spent A LOT of time looking for homes.  Each weekend and some weeknights we were doing drive-bys and every other weekend we were with our realtor.  It actually became an obsession for us both and that was almost all we could think of outside of work and the kids.   We never have felt settled totally here yet.  Maybe it is because we are still missing 80% of our "stuff" or maybe it is because we know we aren't in our permanent home, whatever the reason we are glad it is almost over!




The Mill Mountain Star - symbol of the City of Roanoke 

Art Installation by Charlie Brouwer(Eds graduate advisor) of the same star built from community ladders.  Coincidentally he has done a similar installation in Atlanta called Rise Up Atlanta

 The real estate market in Roanoke is quite different than Atlanta.  This market is not overbuilt and there are not foreclosures & short sales driving the market down here.  In short....it is not a bargain.  We have struggled with consistency in our house hunt here.  Our sensible side has been pushing us to go to "the good school district" our desire for community kept pulling us back to established neighborhoods like we lived in 6 years ago.  Then to add to the confusion our desire to have privacy and space after living on a postage stamp in Atlanta with essentially zero yard drew us to 2-5 acre lots with mountain views.  Add those to our desire to have a nicely updated home, dedicated office, room for each kid to have a bedroom, guest quarters, and possibly a studio for Ed === not in our price range.  To quote the Bravo show "Selling New York"  we needed to either "Adjust our budget, or adjust our expectations".   The expectations had to go!

Thank goodness God has been in charge of this move because with the mess of requirements described above we would have never found a home.  Our poor realtor was clueless about what to really show us...and he really was not all that helpful; Ed did most of the work it seemed.  We were looking at ranches, colonials, farms, city neighborhoods, mountain side neighborhoods, new builds, and turn of the century homes.  We threw a few low ball offers out just to test the market on some properties really out of our range.  Needless to say those didn't go anywhere! 

We were very close to acquiring a home for about 1 month.  It was a great early 1900s home near our old street; it was spectacularly updated, had a fabulous yard, had all the space we needed and was at the top of our budget but just within it.  It even had a detached garage with complete in-law suite above; perfect for our frequently visiting(and very loved families).  We went to see it the 1st day it was on the market and we knew we loved it but we hadn't had an offer on our Atlanta house so weren't quite ready to make an offer so we slept on it.  Our realtor gave no advice about making an offer because he didn't get that the house was a "hot commodity".  The following day the home had an open house; we went back to try and determine if it really was "the one".  The place was CRAWLING with people and the agent hosting was totally overwhelmed.  We were listening to the chatter in the crowd and heard at least 2 families that were going to make an offer.  We were under pressure and didn't really like being in that situation.  We didn't really have any idea what would happen in Atlanta and didn't desire to be in a bidding war when we were so unsure of our financial situation. 



House #1

 We called our realtor and left a message advising of the situation then went to our COR group which is a Sunday night gathering of some church families with kids.  During our group we mentioned the house and it came out that it was actually owned by someone that went to our church who was relocating to California.  This gave us some hope that maybe we had some influence in the situation and this felt pretty good being new to town.  During the "chatter" at the open house we had heard some big talkers referring to "oh I know so and so from so and so organization I'll just give him a call", it was very demoralizing so this relationship made us feel like we maybe had some hope to compete for this place. 

We made a late night offer contingent on GE buying our house in Atlanta and thus closing at the end of July.  We offered above the asking price by about $5k and went to sleep knowing the chances of us winning were slim but we had least played a card.  That next day crept by.  I don't know about you but when I am waiting on important news I am constantly checking all my input sources: work email, personal email, voicemail, etc every 5 minutes or so....impossible to get anything else done.  Totally obsessive I know. So after 24 hours we learned we had lost it for an ALL CASH(who has this kind of cash in a recession?) offer that was $1k lower than us but the biggest difference was a closing date of end of June vs end of July.  We felt very defeated and felt our agent should have counseled us differently.  Again in hindsight it was better that someone else was in control; we just couldn't see that something better was out there for us.

So we kept searching for another month, 2 Saturdays worth of 6-8 times in and out of a car with 2 small children, 1 realtor and a lot of rain while trying to convince ourselves to like something that we really honestly didn't like.  We even considered some pretty major reno projects but given the pull back on lending the cash needed to do major renovation was going to be hard to come by. In the mean time our loft, while nice, was getting a little weary on the weekends with the improving weather.  During nap time we were trapped and our kids are big weekend nappers averaging 2-3 hours.  There just wasn't really anywhere else to go to have a special project, purpose or personal space even.  Our hopes were fading; I began adjusting expectations...dramatically.

So one evening we were doing a drive by in an established turn of the century neighborhood, Raleigh Court for those that know, looking at a home that was very charming but way too small for our family and the extra storage and workshop space we needed.  But as I said we were adjusting expectations.  As we were driving around a neighbor was outside playing with her grandkids and she happened to be someone we knew from  COR.  Jenny owns a really unique consignment store in Grandin Village called  New To Me.  Now in full disclosure I haven't been there yet but can't wait to check it out....remember we spent every extra minute looking at houses = no time to shop. Anyway back to the story.

We rolled down the windows and were chatting with her about looking at a home on the street over.  She agreed with us that the price on that particular home was high for what you were getting.  What she DID ask us is "Have you seen the FSBO(for sale by owner) home on the corner of Greenwood and Shirley Ave?"  We had not because it was not on MLS and we knew every single stinking house for sell in the Roanoke Valley that was on MLS, nothing that was FSBO.  Frankly my impression of FSBO homes at this point was people that really didn't need to sell and were testing the market with overpriced homes so I was not hopeful that this would be worth the drive-by but we did it.

Now Ed and I were in seperate cars for various reasons but we drove by, turned around and drove by again.  My thought was oh my gosh, this is potentially better than house #1, in a better section of town it must be either very expensive or too good to be true. I had no one to confer with at the moment other than C and Little Man who were getting very grumpy and ready for bed, so I had no idea what Ed was thinking. We jotted down the phone number and rushed home to get the kids in bed. 

Dancing at the Down by the River Festival

The owners called us back that night and gave us the details about that house; the specs on the home were unbelievable; on paper it was exactly what we were looking for and within our price range(not at the top!) We booked a showing for the very next evening because we were NOT going to lose another house!!  Now that night was tense.  We wanted to get excited but were afraid to because of the previous scenario.  We wanted to fall in love but weren't willing to take the risk...ever felt like that?  I think everyone has at some point in time.

Now back in Atlanta:  Earlier the same week we had gotten an offer....the first and it was very very bad.  It was a good $25k less than our much adjusted list price.  We had almost NOT countered it was so defeating.  But something made us do it; partially it was our GREAT realtor in Atlanta; Crystal Sloan.  If anyone can sell a house in a down-market it is Crystal.  She has worked so hard for us.  So over the course of the week the potential price of the buyers was coming up but we still didn't think it would get to a point where we would have a deal. 

Back in Roanoke we visited the Greenwood home on Friday night and it was great.  Now it isn't as spectacular on the inside as House #1 but it has the fundamentals upgraded and has so much potential. It is really a better location from a re-sell and neighborhood perspective.  We made an offer that night (without our realtor)....our experience had led us to know a good deal when we saw it now!

Saturday passed; the offer in Atlanta wasn't looking much better and we hadn't heard from the Greenwood house.  We actually told Crystal we were done with the Atlanta offer no more counters.  The pressure was getting to all of us so we took a family night out at a local music festival to try and forget real estate and pretend we lived here so matter what our address. 

We ignored our phones and email for a few hours and just had fun together; we got home late and there was a voice mail waiting on our home phone.  It was the Greenwood owners; they were countering our offer but it was an acceptable amount and we felt we would have a deal!!! 

Recall the saying "Joy comes in the morning" well maybe it was clarity comes in the morning.  I woke up at 6am and it was just as clear as day to me that we needed to get our buyer back for the Atlanta house and be done with all this stress.  I texted our agent at 6:15 AM on a Sunday morning informing her of the same; she had the buyers back and a closing date by the end of the day.  Did I mention that she is awesome?? 

So I am sitting here 95% certain this will be our new home on June 23rd and we couldn't be happier about it. It is a Federal Colonial built in 1914.

Now I do realize how blessed we are to have financial support for this transition.  Without our relocation benefits we would NOT be buying another home.  The losses on the Atlanta home would have killed us without GE support.  I am grateful and somewhat contractually obligated to GE for the next 5 years in return for that support....oh well there is a silver lining to every cloud. 

So here ends the story for today...it is a home that has shown us Gods Grace for us and how it will sustain us if we can only trust that.