Decision, Decisions

About a month and a half ago, my husband and I decided to put our home on the market. With the decline in real estate prices, it isn’t the best time to sell; however, it IS a great time to buy and we want to take advantage of getting a larger home that will essentially keep us within the same mortgage payment. Because of the latter, we listed our home primarily just to see if we would get any bites. Knowing that homes these days can sit on the market for quite a long time, and realizing that it’s the holiday season and not really expecting much traffic {if any at all}, we put the sale of our home way back in the back of our minds.

Within the first week that our home was on the market, we had a few showings, and one really interested buyer – but an offer wasn’t presented. With our home having just been listed, this was more traffic than we even expected, so we were optimistic {and even a bit nervous} that an offer would come our way sooner than later.

Even though we have only been in our home just shy of two years, we both wanted something bigger. When we bought our current house, our impending marriage was just months away, and with the great deal that the builder was offering at the time, we felt an urgency to seal the deal. And we did. We closed on this home with the mindset that it would be our starter home. A newly built, beautiful starter home that we were so thankful to God for. But then the market continued to decline. Home prices dropped even more. As did interest rates. And then our itch to move started {well, for me, actually… it started while I was pregnant. I felt that the walls were closing in and that there wasn’t enough space in our home to even breathe. I came to find out while reading a pregnancy magazine, that this feeling is common in pregnant women}.

While many people these days feel "stuck" with having to remain in a home that they want to sell, but would lose a significant amount of money if doing so, we are fortunate that we aren't in that position. We purchased a home on the last street that was built within our subdivision and we paid a considerable amount less than what others in our neighborhood did. And by a considerable amount less, I'm talking much less. Not only did we get a great deal on our home, but interest rates were at an all time low once our home was finished being built. All of the above certainly paints a wonderful picture but now, just two years later, you can get even more for your money.

I started to struggle with contentment. I like our home, but I don't love it. Primarily because we have an open floor plan. Some days I feel that it suits us well {especially with having a little one that you can see from any space that you are in} but I have discovered a joy for entertaining and I feel that our current home is a bit too confining if too many people come over at once.

My husband and I had so many conversations as to what we should do – do we sell, or do we stay? If we wait for the market to get better, that could be several years from now - and then once it does go up, so do home prices. As a seller, that's great for us - but then at that point, we would also be a buyer {and would not be purchasing at the low end of the market where we could get more for our money}. "You take a risk either way" was my husband's answer.

I love the home shopping process. I love spending hours online searching through MLS listings. I love visiting model homes. I even love walking through resales. I love envisioning where all of our things would go in a home that may perhaps be ours. The moving process…well, nobody likes that.

But this current home of ours has many positives:

• Location. We are 15 minutes from my mom’s house and my husband’s commute to work is probably the same, if not less. My husband's parents also live about 25 minutes from us.
  


• We built this townhome; hence, it is brand new. Well, we didn’t buy land…but we picked our lot within the subdivision, chose our floor plan, and we watched it be built according to all of our custom selections.
  


• We live in a wonderful city within a gated community that has a pool and a cute little dog park.
  


• More than all of the above, due to the amount of money that we put down on our house, our mortgage payment is super low.

Last weekend, our house had a showing. And the couple loved it. So much so that they submitted an offer. The next day. And it was very close to our asking price. You would think we would be elated. But there was a sudden shift in our feelings about moving once that offer was presented to us. The discontenment that I had for several months, had suddenly done a 180. We submitted a counter offer that would make the buyers have to come up on their asking price, and I think we purposely chose that high number secretly hoping that they wouldn't bite, and instead, walk away. I know that may sound awful, but I'm disclosing the truth. Without telling my husband that I felt that we should retract our decision to sell, I asked him what he thought. As it turns out, he too felt that we should stay in our home. We were in alignment.

I have come to see our home as being the perfect size for our family of three {we don't plan on having baby #2 for another few years}. I see it beautifully decorated as I have spent nearly two years turning it into “our home”. I see it for all its wonderful qualities {can a home have “qualities”? I suppose those are the bullet points noted above} and I love how it has seemed to wrap our little family underneath its brick facade and warmly hold us tight. I also have come to realize that a "perfect" house is truly in the eye of the beholder. The people who put an offer in on ours have two small children - and here I was feeling discontent in our home with just one infant.

It's hard to ever really know what's the best decision when it comes to these kinds of things in life. You pray, you plan, and then...you wait. Answers don't fall from the sky. And God doesn't shoot you an email laying out every "move" for you. So instead, you ultimately end up going with your gut. You trust your instincts. You discern what's best for your family. And you remain thankful for all of the many blessings that surround you.