Our House Story: Part 3

{Part 1} {Part 2}

As I left off, doubt had set in about our decision to buy our friends' house, but we decided to push forward with it because we felt it was God's will.

Now, let's go back to the home-buying tips, for a bit. I learned a LOT through this process. So, here goes!

TIP: If you are a first-time home-buyer, for Pete's sake, use an agent! We decided to do it on our own since we were buying from friends. But it was not an easy task figuring everything out on our own.

TIP: Make sure you are pleased with your choice of bank and bank representative. This can be something you don't realize until it's too late, unfortunately. Our bank rep was awful. He was from a big bank, was not local, and was clearly very busy because he did not give us the time of day. In fact, he would often neglect to inform us of things or answer our questions, no matter how clear we made them. He would call and forget why he called. He would tell us we could not move forward without the contract, when we had already given him the contract. He told us to set up a closing date that was impossible to do, and asked us to call him every day the week before our closing date to make sure everything was still okay. No. That is not how it's supposed to be. My advice is to use a local bank and rep who you know will work with you in a dedicated manner.

TIP: Save EVERYTHING and go ahead and start recovering old tax records, pay stubs, and bank statements as soon as you start looking at houses. They will ask you for all kinds of things. Some of which you will have a hard time tracking down. Some of it will seem ridiculous. Don't be surprised. Just breathe and get through it. That's all you can do.

Okay, enough of that for now. So, as you can see...we didn't have the best experience through the process. Throughout all the normal stress of buying a house, which was worse given our lack of help from the bank, we had to deal with stress and doubt. Well, Scott was feeling stress and doubt. Pretty much through the whole ordeal. Not me. I was excited. I was eager to make a difference. I had wild aspirations of radical things happening in the neighborhood because of God using us to meet needs and build relationships. I was not scared of being robbed. Stuff is just stuff anyway. And I felt that God would protect us. And, to be perfectly honest, I wanted to push through racial stereotypes. I truly hate racism and hate the thought that I harbor any prejudice whatsoever (which of course we all do on some level). I hoped that living in that neighborhood would break me of some of that and help me grow and be more loving. And above all, I believed we should be obedient to what I thought God wanted for us.

And you should know, that was the hardest thing Scott and I have ever gone through together. We do not fight. We just don't. Sometimes we get annoyed or upset and we talk it out. But we hate division in our marriage, and this was the first time that we were truly divided. And it was something HUGE! And then you throw God into the mix and trying to figure out how in the world we both feel so strongly that God wants something different. It was really, really hard. Impossibly hard. I hated that I felt like I was pushing Scott in a direction he didn't want to take. I felt like I was robbing him of his role in our marriage. But on the other hand, I just thought maybe I was more spiritually in-tuned that he was, and he was letting fear run his life.

So, what to do?

We continued to move forward with the purchase. It was an extremely rocky path. There were emotional flips and turns and ups and down. We cried a lot. We prayed a lot. More than we've ever, ever prayed together before.

Then lo and behold, it was the weekend before we were set to close. Since we were closing on a Tuesday, and wanted to be out of our current house before the end of the month, we talked to our friends and decided to go ahead and move in that Friday. What was a few days? We would be closing soon anyway. And this way we could move on a weekend and Scott's parents could come down and help us. So, we did.

Bad call.

TIP: Never, ever move into a house or do anything at all to a house until you actually own the thing. Seems like common sense, but obviously these situations can happen.

(Part 4 coming soon!)

{Part 4}