Thursday, November 22, 2012

The Great House Debacle

If you are a long time follower, then you will know we had tried to buy a house last February. That fell through, so we decided to rent a house. I even wrote a nice long post about it.

Now, we did get an offer to rent one of the houses. BUT, then... I decided to start my own business. Part of this decision included accepting that we would have to make things work, and not move into too much bigger place, as we just could not afford it.

So we put our names on a list for a slightly bigger apartment. And we got offered one, but then the house thing came up again. So we decided to go that route again, and turned down the apartment (and another, and another house to rent... and one other apartment).

We spent our summer going back and forth with a realtor, and 3 different banks. We found a house that felt 'right'. Finally, after months and looking down every ally, we got an answer. We just can not buy a house right now. No way. Period.

The whole process was emotionally exhausting for me. We were kind of stuck in this limbo, as if we bought a house, we would be moving to another city. It is kind of hard to start up a business (Sommerfugl Photography), if you don't know where you are going to be living.

There were many tears and heated conversations over the whole process. I just wanted to decide one way or another and move on.

After we got our final answer from the bank (which they made us wait weeks for!), we made a decision. A final decision. We decided to stay in the city we were in and get and put ourselves back on the wait list for a rental house and be poor until my photography business picked up. This decision felt great. It was decided.

At least I thought so.

Either the same night or the next morning (I can't remember) we got a phone call from my husbands uncle. He informed us that him and his sons where going to try and buy a house that was for sale on their street. He wanted to know that, if their offer went through, if we would like to rent it. He invited us to come down and look at it before any decisions were made (I should point out, they had not had their offer accepted yet, but we were able to look at the house since they knew the people selling it).

The next day (or same day) we went down and looked. It is about the same size as our place, but with 3 bedrooms. It has a huge yard. It has a storage shed and a garage. It would be a little cramped, but we decided manageable for a few years. AND I could use the garage as a small studio for photography.

So we said yes, we would rent it if they bought it.

We were now waiting on that whole house buying process again. That night we got a call saying that their offer was accepted, and that they just needed to get the loan from the bank. We would have an answer by the 24th of November.

Last night we got good news. They bought the house, the loan went through. This means we are moving! We have the house from March 1st. Time to start slowly packing I guess.


Its just a little house, but it is a house, with a yard. The kids are going to love it. And see that garage. That is the future home of Sommerfugl Photography.

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