House number three!

Well, our "transition" is almost officially over! Nearly six months ago I lost my job at my previous church. We put our house on the market and it sold within two months. Since then we’ve been spending all our time in the homes of family, friends and the occasional hotel room. Currently there are four of us in a hotel room. It’s the average sized hotel room with a refrigerator, stove and kitchen sink crammed into it as well. I say four because we’ve got our 70 pound chocolate lab with us in here as well (technically, she takes up more space that Titus, so we’re going to count her among our number).

If you’ve been following this blog, you knew that I got a new job. Unfortunately, I’ve been slow on the updates so unless you’re really close, you’ve been out of the loop. Today was the first day of my second week on the job. We’ve been in Austin for a week and have been loving it. The only downside is that we’re living in a hotel. However, we don’t have to be citizens of the Extended Stay nation much longer. Yesterday we put a offer on a house and found out today that it was accepted. No counter offers, just a big, fat "YES!"

Since we came out here 5 weeks ago and met with realtors, we’ve been looking high and low for a house. Actually Sara has been leading the search. Honestly, I think she was more familiar with the real estate web portal that our realtors were. She’d No joke, she’d sometimes put 6+ hours into searching the web for our next house. We’d find a great house at a great price. Then a few hours later, Sara would discover the fatal flaw. She’d search the tax records of all the houses on the street. If the mailing address of the tax records was different than that of the street address, it meant that the owner didn’t live in it, which meant it was a rental property. If the street was loaded with rental properties, it might not be the best street to realize appreciation. Honestly, where does she learn this kind of stuff?

So, after getting here, Sara spent many days driving the neighborhoods. On Friday, I went out with her and the realtor to see the two properties at the top of the list.

By Saturday we had decided on one and on Sunday we made an offer. Our realtor is really good. The house was listed a good 10,000 over what we really wanted to pay. However, our realtor talked to the sellers realtor and told them we were interested, but were on a budget. He told her that we would probably be making an offer, but it would be low compared to the list price, but at the top of what we could afford. He went on to send a letter explaining who we were, that we had a little boy and that I was a pastor of a local church. I don’t know, but whatever he did really worked. We’re going to close in four weeks and after getting stuff we have stored in GA and stuff we have stored in Fort Worth, we’ll officially be done with our 7 month transition… finally! Below are pictures of the house.