Our House Story Part 5

{Part 1} {Part 2} {Part 3} {Part 4}

As I was saying, things had fallen apart and our purchase of our friends' house fell through. But we were already living there. We had to make a decision if we wanted to pursue other attempts to continue with the purchase, or just back out and start over. Starting over seemed impossible. It has been such a tiring and tedious process. I didn't think I could go through it again. Plus, it was the beginning of fall semester and I knew I would be working 2 jobs and going to class. I wouldn't have the luxury of free afternoons to take care of things. And I was so upset about the purchase falling through. As I mentioned before, Scott and I were pretty divided on this. But I had decided that if God wanted us there, He would use Scott to work it out. I was not created to have the strength to keep convincing Scott that this was the right thing to do. I had to admit that maybe it just wasn't.

One morning we were talking about it and getting pretty upset. As we were leaving the house for work, we stopped by the shed to get something out. There is a 4-letter lock on the door. Before we started turning it to the right letters to unlock the door, we realized it was currently set to P-R-A-Y. We both got chills and saw it as a reminder to continue to seek God through the process not only for guidance, but also for comfort.

After several days of prayer and consideration, we decided that this was not, in fact, what God wanted for us. To clarify, we do not think that God "changed his mind." I don't think He does that. And we don't think we were wrong in feeling His calling before. We just determined that sometimes God may call us to do some things, only to call us in a different direction once we get there. Who knows the reason? Maybe it was simply for us to learn to rely on Him more, to pray more, or to grow together as a stronger couple in the Lord. I certainly learned how to trust my husband for spiritual guidance. I admit I have not always done that. I think because I got saved before him, I've often felt like I'm "one step ahead" on things of a spiritual matter. But that is not how it should be. And I should trust that he is seeking God and God is working through him. And I think Scott learned to do just that--seek God and really listen to His guidance. So, maybe God just wanted us to be faithful in that. Who knows? But I believe He called us to take that path, and then called us in a different direction. This is not unheard of. Think about Abraham and Isaac. God called him to kill Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord. Abraham obeyed, but just before he did it, God told him not to. He didn't change His mind; He had it planned that way from the beginning. And maybe that was the case with us, too.

So, we had to tell our friends our decision. Which was very painful. To be honest, I'm still not sure where we stand on that. They are Christians and I believe they have forgiven us. But it put them in a tough position and they have still not sold their house. I hope they are not angry. I hope God is growing them through this, too.

With that being decided, we had no idea what would happen next. We really had to lean on God at this point because we literally did not know where we would be living at the end of the month. Should we move back to our house in Portal? Move into an apartment in town? Get a storage unit and stay with friends? Try to buy a different house?

Well, that is what we decided. Try to buy another house. We started looking again. Within just one day of looking, we noticed that a house we had liked early on in the process had come down significantly in price. It was now in our range! We chose a realtor and we switched to a local bank for this go-round. We went to see the house the next day. We loved it. We made an offer the next day. We heard back within 2 hours that they accept our offer!! We literally went from having no idea where we would live, to having an offer accepted on a home in less than 2 full days. God really blew me away. And I felt silly for even worrying at all.

The process was amazingly smooth and was night and day compared to our last attempts. Our bank rep was awesome and he met with us after hours to accommodate our schedules. The attorney was wonderful. Everything was truly a great experience. Even closing was awesome. The lady who sold us the house is an older lady who is living in an assisted living facility now. She said she had been praying for a Christian couple to come along to buy the house. She said when our realtor told her about us, she knew it was right. She was thrilled to sell to us. It was so moving. I almost started crying as we were signing the papers.

And now we are home owners! We are in our house and I LOVE IT! The very first day, it immediately felt like home. It's a lot like our house in Portal, but with the convenience of living in town. We are surrounded by trees and a BEAUTIFUL yard thanks to the previous owner. And we have all the space we need, including incredible storage space. It is such a blessing. I'm SO thankful that God called us here. And I'm even thankful everything that happened on the way to this. I enjoyed my time in the other house, but it never felt like home like this does. And I feel like I've grown so much since this summer. God really does just blow me away!

~Christy~

Our House Story: Part 4

Source: photokapi.smugmug.com via Melissa on Pinterest

{Part 1} {Part 2} {Part 3}

To pick up where I left off, we had just moved into our friends' house which we were planning to buy and were supposed to close on in a matter of days. Things immediately started going wrong. First it was just little things, like having trouble finding homes for all our stuff and the outlet for the dryer not matching our own. We also found out that there was a problem with the title. Somehow the boundaries listed in the title had changed during the 1998 sale. For some reason that was not a problem then, nor was it a problem three years ago when our friends bought the house. But for us it meant our closing was pushed back indefinitely until it could be resolved. But we already lived in the house! So, we talked with our friends and thankfully they were incredibly awesome through the whole ordeal. They offered to rent the house to us in the meantime. We were hoping this would only mean a few extra days or a week at most before it was resolved.

The second day that we lived there, Scott and his dad were shopping at Lowe's while his mom and I were unpacking. She was in the kitchen and I was in the hallway. Let me pause and remind you that there is an upstairs attic apartment in that house which can be rented out. There was currently a renter living there. Okay, back to the story. I heard strange noises coming from the living room, but I didn't see anything. I turned back to the box I was unpacking and then heard a VERY loud crash in the living room! I turned quickly and all I saw was a falling light and tons of ceiling and drywall crumbling down. My immediate thought was that the ceiling fan must have fallen. Then I saw a leg! And realized it was the upstairs renter! Hanging from my living room ceiling! He crawled back up into his apartment as Scott's mom and I shouted up at him to make sure he was okay. The whole living room was covered in dust and drywall. My heart was racing. I didn't know what happened, but assumed he must have just been walking along in his apartment and the entire floor fell through. I kept thinking... I do not own this house!!! What do you do??

We ran upstairs to check on him. Thankfully he was fine. Also thankfully, it turns out the house was not falling apart. He was actually crawling around in the crawl space between the levels looking for his girlfriend's cat who had gotten in there and had accidentally stepped off the beams onto the sheet rock. Whew! That's one worry to set aside. But it still remained that my living room was trashed, the ceiling had a massive hole in it, and I was living in a house that I did not yet own.

My friends are amazing, Godly people and they somehow managed to not freak out at all. They had someone come out and fix the hole and all was well. But the guy couldn't come out until Tuesday and it was Saturday. So meanwhile we had a gaping hole in our ceiling and all I could think about was all the AC blowing straight up there and running up our power bill. But, aside from that, the crisis was over.

We found out on Monday that the problem with the title was being resolved and we should be able to close within a week or so. Then on Wednesday we got a call from the bank. I should have also mentioned before that we were originally planning to do an FHA loan (which was not a problem when our friends bought the house...see a pattern here?), but were told after the appraisal that because of the attic apartment we would have to do a conventional loan. This would mean putting 5% down instead of 3.5%. It was a little more than we anticipated, but we figured it out. But the call on Wednesday from the bank told us another story. Our rep explained that because of the attic apartment, it is considered investment property. Due to regulations set by Freddie Mac, we would have to put down 20% to buy the house. TWENTY PERCENT! Who has that?? Not us, that was for sure!

Well, this pretty much brought us to a halt. We went into problem solving mode and thought about switching to another bank. We contacted the bank our friends had used when they bought the house. The lady there explained that if the appraiser listed it as a Mother-in-Law Suite it would not be a problem. But because of the separate utilities and the renter who was currently living there, it is likely that an appraiser would have no choice but to call it what it really was...an apartment. She offered to go through the entire process with us again from scratch, and hope that their appraiser listed it differently.

I was so tired. Gosh, I was tired. I cried and cried. How could we get this far and everything just fall apart? I admit I was angry with God. I felt so certain that He called us to make this move. Why were things not working out? Scott and I were a complete mess. We prayed and prayed and prayed some more. And it certainly seemed like God was steering us away from that house. But why? Why call us to move there and then call us away? Did we just read the signals wrong before? Were we reading them wrong this time?

We had dinner with our pastor and talked about it. He obviously couldn't tell us what to do, but he gave us some great advice for seeking God and listening to our hearts. And there was one thing that was a blinding, flashing light that I had been trying to ignore all summer long. Scott is the spiritual head of our household. And he had bad feelings about this for weeks. I had been exhausting myself trying to encourage, inspire, and convince Scott that this was what we should be doing. One night, as we were laying together and praying I said one of the most difficult things to say. I told him, "I will do whatever you think we should do. I'm not going to fight it anymore." He was against that attitude at first. He didn't want me to feel like I had to back down and not have a say in such a big decision. But it wasn't that. The bottom line is Scott is the head. We were both seeking God with willing hearts. If God wanted us in that house, He would keep us there through Scott. If He wanted us to move, He would do that through Scott, too. So we prayed again, and I promised to trust the spiritual guidance of my husband.

(The next part is the BEST part! Coming soon!)

{Part 5} 

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}

Our House Story: Part 2

Source: t.isaac.io via Aleks on Pinterest

Wow, do I take forever to get through a story or what??

So, as I mentioned in this post, we had decided to take a break from house hunting and went on our 3-year anniversary cruise. The week after we got back, our plans radically changed.

Our good friends (who were actually my former roommates from college. You may remember them from my Love Story with Jesus series) were trying to sell their house. They were moving to Atlanta at the end of the summer to start training for church-planting. We were in the same church small group and each week their prayer request was that God would call someone to buy their house. The house was built in 1950 and is located in downtown Statesboro. The location is super convenient, but not in the best area of town. Everyone who came to look at the house was mostly turned off by the neighborhood. In fact, we had said many times that we would not have bought that house if we were them because of the area. We literally had no desire to live there.

But as I mentioned in my God Choices series, sometimes God calls us to do things we never would think to do on our own. One night, driving home from small group, Scott said, "I have a crazy thought." And I immediately said, "You think we should buy their house?" He wasn't 100% sure, but he said he felt like God was prompting him to take action as we were closing the group in prayer that night. I had a similar feeling, and admitted that I had the same crazy thought. We talked about how it would answer so many prayers. We would have a house, they would sell theirs, and there would continue to be a strong, Christian couple living in that neighborhood, which we all felt was important in serving those in that community. But we have been known to be a little hasty in our decisions and then backing out, and we had even previously done that with this particular couple in the past when we thought we might want to rent out their attic apartment (another cool feature to that house!) and then decided it was too small and impractical for us. So, we promised we would not mention it to them for at least a week. In fact, we decided not to talk to anyone about it for a whole week while we prayed it over. We didn't want others' opinions about the neighborhood or the age of the house to impact our decision. We wanted to make it fully based on what God wanted.

We prayed for a week. We checked in with each other throughout. We were both still feeling good about it. In fact, I was getting more and more excited about the prospect of living in a hurting community so we could maybe make an impact by building relationships, meeting needs, and hopefully sharing the Gospel with others. So, we decided to tell the couple that we were considering it, and we asked for a formal walk-through of the house. We had been there many times, but never looked at it from the perspective of potential buyers. We took the walk-through. There were some flaws, mostly to do with the age of the house. But it had been modernized and updated in many ways, they had it decorated so cute, and there was nothing so wrong that it would be a deal-breaker.

The next day at church, the message was about courage. Our pastor talked about having the courage to follow God's plan and take action, even when it's hard or scary. We felt it spoke to us on many levels...actually taking action on buying a home, buying from friends, buying a house that was considered a risk. We met with the prayer team at the end of the service and had them pray with us. Afterwards we decided to go for it! We called our friends and told them we were ready to move forward with the purchase. It was an exciting moment and we all rejoiced.

Unfortunately the joy was short-lived. By that afternoon, after we started telling people, Scott was hit with massive doubt and regret. People who we love and respect were cautioning us about the danger of the neighborhood and the risk of buying an old house. Some were going as far as practically begging us to reconsider. But my perspective was that God had called us to make this decision, we prayed about it and felt affirmed in our decision. So we had to stick to it, even when doubt and fear set in. I wasn't sure if it was just natural fear in following God's plan when it's hard, or if some of it was actually doubt from the enemy. But I was determined to push forward.

(more to come tomorrow!)

{Part 3}

I'm Jumping Ahead

Yes, I want to tell this whole story. And I have SO much to say. I'm trying to figure out how to best explain God's wonderful provisions in my life and how His divine will and goodness has completely overwhelmed me. I am so thankful to my Lord and Savior.

We are home owners! :) It's finally official! A process that started back in January and really heated up in June is finally coming to a close! I can hardly believe it. We move in tomorrow.

The closing couldn't have been more perfect. The owner was the sweetest little Christian lady. I really felt like we connected during the process and I could tell she was pleased and thankful to be selling to us, even though she is sad to see her house go. She is now living in an assisted living home. She had been praying for the right couple to come along, and she prayed that they would be Christians. She believes this is an answered prayer, and it certainly has been for us, too. She even gave us a giant binder of records of everything that has been done to the house in the past 10 or 15 years! How amazing is that?? Loved every second...even though my signature was unrecognizable by the end of it. :)

I want to share more tips and more about our journey, but for now...just....YAY!

Have a great weekend y'all!

Aren't you buying a house or something??

Yes, we are buying a house. I can see why there might be some confusion because this process started in JANUARY. And no, we have not officially bought anything yet. The reason I began the "God Choices" series was to document some Spirit-led decisions in my life to lead up to the story of our house purchase. God has been all up in this business! But it hasn't gone the way I expected at all (which I guess was my own point the whole time with these decisions...funny that I didn't see that coming!).

My plan is to chronicle the house journey, leading (God willing!!) to the actual purchase of our house (which is currently scheduled for Sept. 7th. Yes, that means this will have to be done quickly!). I hope that our stories will do several things--entertain you, inform you of what to expect from this process, and encourage you in the belief that God is working all things together for your good!

On January 18th I posted that we were officially looking for a house, and I talked about some of our fears and concerns. I guess I always thought that it would be fun. And maybe it is for some people, but it really hasn't been for us. We didn't know what to expect for our price range and we didn't have a vision for potential. We also weren't super aligned with what we wanted. So, we had a lot to work through just in the beginning stages of searching.

TIP: Discuss with your partner (if buying with someone else) what you NEED. Yes, talk about what you want, but make sure you spend a lot of time discussing the non-negotiables for you. There are plenty of things we would love to have, but not all of it is a deal-breaker. 

TIP: Look online at what the options are for your area and in your price range. Get a good idea of what your options are before looking in person. I think it just helps you be more realistic when your'e actually looking. BUT--don't base everything off of pictures online. They can be VERY deceiving! And sometimes they may not do the place justice. So consider that, too. 

We signed with a Realtor who was very nice and helpful, but he was only available to work 8-5 Monday through Friday. Well, that's when we work, too! So it was very challenging to try to look at houses during lunch breaks.

TIP: Find an agent who is willing to work with you (show houses, draft contracts, etc...) during hours that are convenient to you. The more flexible he/she is, the better. 

We found some houses that we were interested in, but none of them worked out. The first house had a roof that was 30 years old. It appeared to be in good condition, but we knew that it would likely need to be replaced in the next few years. For that reason, we were only willing to pay a certain amount for it, even though we really liked the house. The sellers wouldn't budge, so we walked. It was a hard decision, and we still drove by that house frequently, wondering if we made the right choice. It has since sold, and I feel good about the decision. Roofs are one of the most expensive things to get repairs or replaced.

TIP: Consider the roof!! 

The next couple houses were foreclosures and they were right next door to each other. We loved the neighborhood, though the area around the neighborhood wasn't terrific, and it was just a little further than we were hoping from work and church. The houses were listed well below their actual value, but were both still out of our price range. We decided to make offers on both of them, much lower than asking price. The choice between the two of them was tough because one was in better condition and prettier, but it was smaller and had a few features that I didn't love, and it was more expensive. The other house was bigger, had some cool features (the bathroom was much better!!), it was cheaper, but it was in worse condition. We made offers on both. It was actually accepted on the cheaper but bigger house! We moved forward with the inspection.

TIP: Definitely do an inspection, even if it isn't required by your bank. And compare prices for things that need to be fixed to see how much you're really talking about.

After doing the inspection, we realized just how much work that house needed. The people who lived there really trashed the place. There had been a fire in the kitchen, and several parts of the cabinets and counters needed to be replaced. There was a hole in the wall of the living room. There were some missing doors. There were terrible scratches on doors and walls (from jumping dogs, it seemed), and the carpets all needed to be replaced. The whole place stunk of animals. We could have afforded the house itself, but we did not have enough money to put into all those things that needed to be fixed before we could even move in. We tried to renegotiate for a repair allowance, but we were denied. We walked. I recently found out that it sold for cheaper than we had offered, but I still think we made the right choice. We wouldn't have had that money for repairs no matter how cheap they sold the house to us.

After all that, we decided to take a break. That was in March. We stopped looking and we voided our contract with our realtor. We decided to book a cruise for our anniversary in May since saving every penny for a house wasn't that necessary anymore. We went about life, with little to no thoughts of house shopping. We decided we would leave it up to God. If He wanted us to buy a house, we would know it. Until then, we were just waiting.

Then the week after our cruise in May, we heard from God! More on that to come!


{Part 2}