I have written about selling my late mother-in-law's house, and I've talked about moving into our new place, but I've been afraid to say anything about selling our old house. The deal has been so fragile, and I've been holding my breath so not to break it.
The first time we tried to sell our house we tiptoed around trying not to make a mess that might turn off a potential buyer. No dirty dishes were left in the sink, you could bounce a quarter off the bed sheets, and we stripped the walls of all personality. To make the house look bigger, we loaded half of our belongings into a storage pod, and waved goodbye as a truck took our stuff to parts unknown. We reassured ourselves that we'd just saved a lot of packing time when the pod was delivered to our new home.
We didn't know the housing market was about to take one of the biggest nosedives in years.
In the end, I think only three couples actually visited at our house, and none of them considered making us an offer. To add salt to the wound, we had one open house where no one came, not even the realtor - she opened the wrong house to the public.
Six months after listing our house Daphne was three months pregnant, and the pod was back in our driveway waiting to be unloaded. Talk about feeling defeated.
But four years later the housing market in Des Moines was booming. We put our house on the market in late September, and four days later we had an offer. The buyers agreed to our asking price, and the only stipulations were that they wanted my eight-year-old mower and a closing date before the end of October. Offer accepted! We signed the papers as quickly as possible.
Then two days later the government shut down, and so did their FHA loan. The buyers couldn't buy our house, but since we signed their paperwork, we couldn't sell it to anyone else, either. We were stuck in a realty limbo. We were also told that house sales really slow down in the fall, and every day the elected officials in Washington fought and pouted, the knot in my stomach tightened.
Then the buyers went to get a traditional bank loan, instead. Yea! And they were turned down... twice. What? But then they got a large monetary gift. Yea! But they had to prove it wasn't from drug deals. Huh? Throw in the termite and house inspections along with two banking holidays, and the closing date kept being pushed back. Three times the signing at the bank was put on hold.
Just thinking about it makes me a little sick. Whenever a storm rolled through I had two roofs to worry about. When I'd see a firetruck lit like a Xmas tree, I'd pray that it wasn't headed to either of our neighborhoods. We had two basements to flood, two driveways to shovel, and two house payments to make. Excuse me while I go throw up.
When I wasn't driving over to take care of the yard, I'd be driving over to check on the "For Sale" sign in our yard. I kept hoping to see a big, red "Sold!" sticker plastered over it. Even a small triangle marked "Pending" would have been encouraging. But for 55 days that sign remained unchanged.
Then yesterday, at 2:30, the sign was yanked out of the ground and tossed into a car's trunk. When he came over to our home around 5:00, our realtor said this was maybe the fourth time in a 30 year career that he didn't get to put a "sold" sign in front of a sold house. He then handed us a check from the bank.
We were officially one-home owners.
It still hasn't sunk in. This morning I had the inclination to drive by to make sure we're okay after last night's rain, but I don't have to go over anymore. In fact, the new owners don't want me there. That's a weird thought. In one afternoon an albatross became forbidden ground.
I shouldn't say albatross. When we were the buyers, we were overjoyed to leave our cramped apartment behind, and that house treated us well. Although we outgrew the place, we loved it. We always repaired what was broken, and every year we made improvements on it.
Our realtor told us when he was at the bank, he got a glimpse of the young couple that purchased our house. The buyers were there with their parents, and everyone was glowing with excitement. Apparently our old house is a huge leap from wherever they were living before. He also said that they weren't locals; they needed a translator to help them with the language barriers.
That's where this all clicks together. When she retired, my mother-in-law left a very high position at Well Fargo Bank to work at Lutheran Services of Iowa. She no longer wanted to help a corporation; Deb wanted to use her skills to help people and families in need.
When I realized that a lot of the families Debbie helped also needed translators, I wondered why I was ever worried. This was always going to work out. She was seeing to that.
Thanks, Mom. This sign's for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment