Yes. Our offer was accepted on friday night, and I got a call about it while on the women’s retreat. We’re really excited and now we have to wait for the inspections.

The settlement date is supposed to be at the very end of July, so that means we’re gonna be around for 2 more months.

Apparently the seller was really soul-searching about whether or not to accept. We were really unsure for about 2 days if we would have to start looking again.

So for now, it looks good, and we have to wait another week or so before we have all the results from the different tests. That will tell us what will happen next.

Thanks for all the prayers, and keep praying. Here are a couple more pictures of the house and backyard…

The whole time you are searching for a home, you have to keep in mind your price range. Your price range largely depends on how much you have saved to put down as your initial down payment. Your budget will also be affected depending on what rate the bank will offer you on your loan, and that depends on your credit, and how much you want to borrow.

Then you gotta factor in the real estate taxes, and if there are any other fees associated with a condominium or other common thing.

At the end of it, one has to decide whether all this is a wise investment. Sometimes, you really like a house, but it doesn’t meet your most basic needs and desires. Sometimes you like a house, but it’s price is just beyond your reasonable monthly expenditures, and buying it would be a poor investment.

So, here we are at another financial battle. The original offer for the home we liked was high, so we made an offer, taking about 7-8% off the asking price. Unfortunately, they came back with a counter offer that was $10,000 more than we offered them. Now, as our “final” offer, we went up $2000. At this point, it becomes a matter of wise investing…

If we go higher, the house might not appraise at that high value, in which case we wouldn’t be able to be approved for our loan. Not only that, but then we might feel like on resale, we might never make back what we invested.

Today, the seller will once again be given a chance to accept our offer. If they do, hurray, we move on.

If they don’t, I think we will walk again, and start looking again. Either way, we’ll keep moving forward.

Here’s a picture of the house we’re trying to get, from the front/side view…

This weekend was another whirlwind of house hunting.

We made arrangements for the boys to stay with my parents, and we went and stayed overnight in Bucks, in the effort of trying to see as many houses as we can…

We saw 8 houses on Friday and 3 on Saturday. Surprisingly, even after the disappointment with the other house, we found 3 we liked. Two we really liked! We spend many a time talking over and splitting hairs over what we liked about each. We decided on one, Elephant Rd. –to make an offer on. When our realtor was trying to find out what the settlement date might be, we were shocked to find that there were 2 other offers on this house.

This house has only been in the market for 8 days, and they already had received 3 offers. Amazing! Some houses just got it going on. After some recalculation and thorough thinking, we made some changes to our original offer, signed our life away, and then Heather went on to deliver it. We would have to wait overnight to hear back, so we headed back to Long Island to meet up with my parents and our boys.

As I clicked thru the pictures of the house we made an offer on, and the other house we decided not to make an offer on, I started to second guess our decisions. Mostly because I began to think that some of our decisions to go to one house versus another had to do with some “unattainable goals” I apparently set for our house. The Elephant Rd. house has a HUGE yard, a modest house, and a quiet neighborly location. The one house we had not offered on was on Main Street(actually Rt. 313–a main artery through the county, but it was a great house with a great yard, and an old garage with great potential for a studio, but it was on a very busy street. That night, as I clicked thru the pictures, in the dark, all by myself, I earnest prayed once again, asking God to resolve my doubts, and make things clear about my doubts. I was feeling like maybe my fears had gotten the best of me… I knew that it wasn’t so much the house but our attempt to be open to God’s way that would matter most. I slept at peace knowing God would work.

In the morning, before we left for church, I got a call from the realtor, that in the middle of the night she’d received an email that we had lost the bid. The winner had been a cash buyer. We had not been outbid. The seller decided to go with a lower cash offer. That email from the seller’s realtor was at the same time as I was praying. You might call it coincidence. I call it, God working. And when I got the call from Heather, I wasn’t even disappointed. It was easy to move on…

So tomorrow we will be putting an offer on the Main Street House. All the documents have been signed by me and mailed. Fabio will meet up with the realtor and sign everything too. And then we wait til Wednesday. It might go great, it might not. Either way, we’re trusting.

There are some great compromises for us in this house… Because it’s on Main Street, maybe it will give us a bit more of our transition from the city, so we won’t miss things as much. Also, since it’s on a busy Street, Fabio and I can agree on the fence issue*. Last, the only thing we have to work on is the garage/studio, and that is outside the house, so the work won’t affect our living!

Please pray for us. Maybe third time’s a charm. Even if they accept our offer, there will still be inspections and lots of other steps, but the biggest one will be overcome. Since this house has no septic, things should go a lot better.

Thanks for the prayers, and keep on praying for us to listen clearly!

I hope to add a couple pictures of the house tomorrow, once Fabio send me some…