Movin' Out - Part 3: The Morning After

So, yesterday, we closed on our house [insert excited squeal here]!

For those who missed the previous episode and are interested, you can catch up on part 1 and part 2.

I was a bundle of nervous energy all day, but I not only worked one of my jobs, but both. Everyone asked me 'How can you even work today???' It definitely helped me to stay productive distracted me from being nervous - and, well, if I don't work, I don't buy a house.

Everything went without a hitch. The lawyers were great, the owners were amazing (one of the nicest couples I have ever met...an older couple around 65-70 years old)...and there in the lawyer's office surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, James and I signed our life away for the next 30 years.

We went out for dinner to celebrate (yes, we still actually had a little something in our checking account) and then headed over to our house.

It was surreal as we pulled in, and I said to James, "Hon, this is our driveway... to our house..."

We went into the house, and inside the fridge was a bottle of wine from the owners. There really wasn't anything we could do just yet, but we just wanted to be there. (Well, we had our first hug in our new house :) . So we just parked ourselves on the living room floor and were just quiet for a while.

So many changes, all happening so fast. I am so thankful they are good changes, but changes none the less. I guess that is what I feel most unprepared for: this roller coaster of emotions. I just sort of thought I would float on puffy clouds through this whole wedding-marriage-home-buying process.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a bit of a back-story as to why it was so huge for us to get this house:

[I never want to share too much of James' business, so I will do my best to convey the story while respecting the fact that he is not blogging his life on the internet...]

James had something of a 'colorful' childhood as far as where he lived, home life, etc. He has lived in lots of different places, with different people, over the course of his childhood. And as you might guess, that's not really the most advantageous environment for a kid to grow up in. So, 'home' never really had the greatest connotations, if the concept even existed in his mind at all.

Our God is so redemptive and in spite of all the disadvantages he faced, he (with God's help) has made his life something to be proud of. I certainly am, and I know God is, too.

Ok, back to the house...well, the apartment James has lived in for the past 8 years is the longest he has ever lived in one place. And he LOVES the area he rents in (which happens to be a bit pricey). And as one might conjecture, that has become 'home' for him. The idea of leaving a place that a person has grown so attached to is hard, even if it is a good change. So, when we were discussing where we would live, you can imagine some of the inner conflict.

Now when the possibility presented itself to us to buy a house, I so wanted this for James. I wanted us to have a chance to not only have a place where we could settle and not have to move in a year, but one that would be his own home. To me, it just seemed so right and redemptive that, at the start of our marriage, he would be able to begin his new life with something he never had before - something so integral to it.

So, when we found this house, I wanted this so badly for him. It's small and modest (we're OK with that) but most importantly, it would be ours. Not only did it seem like something we would really be happy with, but it was only 2 miles from where he lives now. And liked I mentioned, he loves this area. That is when I really started getting fearful that this wouldn't work out. I would have been more disappointed for him than for me.

In being an honest storyteller, I have to say that James never mentioned that this carried the same importance to him. It might just be my female conjecture, but I'm guessing some similar thoughts may have run through his mind too. But I know that I just wanted him to have the feeling of joy and safety and sanctuary that having a home that is your own to come back to each day brings.

I know, every couple would like to have a home at the start of their marriage. I agree. But for us, I just felt like there was a lot more riding on it; it was a lot more significant. But that's just me.

So when we signed those papers and drove into the driveway of our home, I was in awe of this new reality God had created for us. It all just seemed so providential. And - we found out that for a reasonable yearly fee, we actually have private beach rights to four different beaches! (I tell here how James feels about the beach and what it means to him. And actually, now that I think about it, it is so cool that God is giving us a new beach - and not just Cedar Beach - to be our beach.)

Last night before we left, we prayed together on our living room floor in our empty house and asked God to bless it and make it a home for us- with love and peace, that we would be a light to our neighbors, that this gift from Him to us would be consecrated to Him and used for His purposes.

So, the morning after, we are (still) smiling at His faithfulness.

"The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning ;
Great is Your faithfulness."

~Lamentations 3:22-23

Movin' Out - Part 2

For those just tuning in, you can catch the first part of the story in my last post.

OK, I left off describing how we lost the bid on the first house we were hoping for. Here is where we pick up again:

After about a week of licking our wounds, we started to look again. Armed with our new list, we did the circuit again. By the end of the day, there were two that we were interested in. We made an appointment with our realtor, and it was clear which was the better of the two.

The one we liked had just been updated with new siding, roof, windows, doors, cesspool, fence, and electric. It was a nice-sized flat lot (rare in that area) with the potential to be expanded in any direction - and it had a white picket fence to boot.

Not to be outdone again, we put in an offer right away.

While we were waiting to hear back from the realtors, James and I would say to ourselves, "What are we doing??? Should we even be doing this??? Now??? A wedding and a house???? Are we crazy???" It's funny though, because all of the wise people we ran this crazy scheme by affirmed that it was not so crazy after all. In fact, it was a smart move (Yay! Point for us!).

A few phone calls, a few negotiations, a few stipulations - but they took it. They accepted our offer.

We could hardly believe this was happening for us. Now that we had gone beyond 'just a dream' to a 'real possibility,' my anxiety started to kick in a notch. By this time, I was scared to get my hopes us.

There's a little bit of a back-story as to why this was so important to us that I'll share another time, but just trust me when I say, moving into 'our' house was important to me. We had prayed at every stage of this process and we knew we would be OK if things didn't work out. But the blessing it would be to move into a house that was actually ours would be was huge (and not in the I-need-to-be-living-the-American-dream- kind of way).

But, deep down, I just felt like this was a long-shot (See? My negative thinking!). There were just so many odd-shaped pieces that had to fit together:

The taxes had to fall within a certain amount. {They did.}

The house had to pass inspection. {It did.}

We had to officially get approved for the mortgage. {We did.}

The seller had to agree to the closing concessions. {He did.}

And he had to agree to do the minor repairs. {Yes, that too.}

The house had to be appraised for the right amount. {Mmm- hmmm. You know where this is going...}

I was so afraid we would get to the next stage and the bottom would fall out. But to my surprise, lack of faith, God kept the ground firm beneath us and opened the next door for us to walk through. There were a few unexpected expenses (which actually is to be expected), but amazingly, the money was there each time. Don't ask me how...but it was.

So, yesterday, we did the walk-through, and we are so convinced this was the right house. The owner was amazing and spent over two hours with us, showing us the ropes and letting us pick his brain for how we might do some renovations. We were so excited to plan and dream and imagine our life together in this house.

It all happened so fast - we only started house-shopping in November! But the contract was signed by December 22, and we will be closing tomorrow on January 25. And honestly, the timing is perfect. Any earlier, we would have had to pay the mortgage and my rent for a few months. Any later, the wedding would have been right on top of us.

So, James will start moving in this week, which will give him the weeks between the Jets play-offs and the Super Bowl to get settled in the TV hooked up(and if you knew my James, you would know what a big deal that is!). Then, little by little, I will bring my stuff over and then move myself in after the wedding (Yes, we are waiting until after we are married to live together).

We are prepared for the next few weeks to be a little crazy, but we are totally awe-struck when we sit back and think this over. Who would have thought a social services housing worker and a Christian school teacher on Long Island could have ever afforded to buy a home on Long Island???

It is beyond what we would have thought to ask - but not beyond what God would have thought:

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you," says the Lord,
"thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."

~ Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)

Only God could have come up with this. Only God can make those crazy-shaped-pieces-that-don't-fit...fit.

Our new 2 bedroom 'cozy' cottage. Thank you, Jesus!

Movin' Out - Part 1

The big move. That has been on my mind the most this week. And on the floor of my apartment. This is just a small corner of the chaos I have been living in: The place is in disarray, but it is sort of metaphoric for my state of mind: scattered, disorganized, too much activity in one small place...but an current of excitement underneath it all.

On Monday coming up, we are closing on our house.

Ok, let me back up and tell you how we got here, before I start diving into the internal/mental/emotional/over-emotional aspects of the move.

It is so miraculous that we are in this position. Honestly. It was God. After we got engaged, we didn't really talk about where we would live; we just assumed that we would just rent an apartment. Realistically, that was all we could afford to do.

But one day James mentioned that a guy at work just bought a condo, and put x amount down and only pays y each month. He mentioned that we should look into it. I asked him if he was serious [James 'mentions' a lot of things] - because if he was, I would start researching. He was.

So, I did a few google searches, signed up for a real estate listing that popped up, and soon, I was getting email updates of homes for sale in the area we were looking in. OK, there were a few possibilities. Of some really cute homes. That we could afford.

I have a church friend who does mortgages, so I gave him a call and just asked him to run our numbers and see what he thought. Was this even a realistic possibility??? I told him how much money we had in hand, what we could probably afford a month, our salaries, debt, credit, etc. Did he think we could get approved for a mortgage and how much cash in hand did we need. And I wanted him to factor in every possible, potential cost. If it wasn't realistic, I didn't even want to get my hopes up.

He checked it out and said, 'Yeah, Katie. I can pre-approve you for x amount -and for an FHA (First-time Homebuyer's loan) putting only 3.5% down. With the cash you have, it should be no problem.' And the interest rate he thought we could get? About 5%.

Whoooaaaaa. Deep breath. 3.5% down - we can afford that. The cash in hand needed - we had that. The payments with those rates would be x dollars per month. We can afford that. And that is what we would probably be paying for rent for a 2 bedroom apartment anyway.

Ok. Another deep breath. So this really was a possibility.

All-righty then, here we go. I pulled together a list of addresses, and we went 'shopping' on November 1st. One of the houses on our list was actually having an open house that day. Just went on the market that week. In fact, it was my favorite of all the houses on my list. We went in, took a look around...and we were in love.

We were so excited about the possibility of this house. It was within walking distance from the beach, move-in condition, big kitchen, granite countertops...it seemed perfect for us. We could totally see ourselves raising a family here.

We put an offer in that week. Too low. Her realtors told us that the owner wasn't going to get into a bidding war. She just wanted best offers and then after a week, she would choose. We had met the owner when we were there and really felt a connection with her, so we thought we had a good chance. 'Unofficially,' our realtor told us that it was between us and another couple; the owner felt torn - liked us both. Our realtor said to write a letter...sometimes that can sway the vote. So I did - a darn touching letter, I might add - sincere and honest - but touching.

About a week later, we got the call.

She chose the other couple.

Defeat.

More to come on how this story played out in the next post...

{For those who have read this before, I decided to break the original story into two posts, due to length! Sorry for any confusion!}